Animalistic slurs increase harm by changing perceptions of social desirability.

In propaganda and hate speech, target groups are often compared to dangerous and disgusting animals. Exposure to these animalistic slurs is thought to increase endorsement of intergroup harm but the mechanism by which this happens remains unclear. Across two pre-registered and highly powered studies, we examined how animalistic language influences the cultural transmission of beliefs about target groups. In line with previous work, we found that describing a novel political group with animalistic slurs increased the extent to which participants endorsed harm towards them. Importantly, reading animalistic slurs did not influence the extent to which participants believed the target group possessed uniquely human qualities. Rather, the animalistic slurs influenced endorsement of harm by making the target group appear more undesirable. These findings offer a novel perspective into the nature of dehumanization and new insights into how hate speech functions.

Reduced helping intentions are better explained by the attribution of antisocial emotions than by 'infrahumanization'.

We challenge the explanatory value of one of the most prominent psychological models of dehumanization-infrahumanization theory-which holds that outgroup members are subtly dehumanized by being denied human emotions. Of central importance to this theory is the claim that, to the extent that other people are 'infrahumanized', they are less likely to be helped. We examine this hypothesised relationship across four pre-registered and well powered studies. We do not find that attributing all uniquely human emotions to others is positively associated with helping intentions towards them. Instead, we find that attributing prosocial emotions is positively associated with helping intentions and attributing antisocial emotions is negatively associated with helping intentions, regardless of emotion humanness. In our data, what previously appeared to be an association between subtle dehumanization and reduced helping is better explained by the tendency to avoid helping others when we view them negatively.

Intergroup preference, not dehumanization, explains social biases in emotion attribution.

Psychological models can only help improve intergroup relations if they accurately characterise the mechanisms underlying social biases. The claim that outgroups suffer dehumanization is near ubiquitous in the social sciences. We challenge the most prominent psychological model of dehumanization - infrahumanization theory - which holds outgroup members are subtly dehumanized by being denied human emotions. We examine the theory across seven intergroup contexts in thirteen pre-registered and highly powered experiments (N = 1690). We find outgroup members are not denied uniquely human emotions relative to ingroup members. Rather, they are ascribed prosocial emotions to a lesser extent but antisocial emotions to a greater extent. Apparent evidence for infrahumanization is better explained by ingroup preference, outgroup derogation and stereotyping. Infrahumanization theory may obscure more than it reveals about intergroup bias.

No convincing evidence outgroups are denied uniquely human characteristics: Distinguishing intergroup preference from trait-based dehumanization.

According to the dual model, outgroup members can be dehumanized by being thought to possess uniquely and characteristically human traits to a lesser extent than ingroup members. However, previous research on this topic has tended to investigate the attribution of human traits that are socially desirable in nature such as warmth, civility and rationality. As a result, it has not yet been possible to determine whether this form of dehumanization is distinct from intergroup preference and stereotyping. We first establish that participants associate undesirable (e.g., corrupt, jealous) as well as desirable (e.g., open-minded, generous) traits with humans. We then go on to show that participants tend to attribute desirable human traits more strongly to ingroup members but undesirable human traits more strongly to outgroup members. This pattern holds across three different intergroup contexts for which dehumanization effects have previously been reported: political opponents, immigrants and criminals. Taken together, these studies cast doubt on the claim that a trait-based account of representing others as 'less human' holds value in the study of intergroup bias.

Overlap in processing advantages for minimal ingroups and the self.

Cognitive biases shape our perception of the world and our interactions with other people. Information related to the self and our social ingroups is prioritised for cognitive processing and can therefore form some of these key biases. However, ingroup biases may be elicited not only for established social groups, but also for minimal groups assigned by novel or random social categorisation. Moreover, whether these 'ingroup biases' are related to self-processing is unknown. Across three experiments, we utilised a social associative matching paradigm to examine whether the cognitive mechanisms underpinning the effects of minimal groups overlapped with those that prioritise the self, and whether minimal group allocation causes early processing advantages. We found significant advantages in response time and sensitivity (dprime) for stimuli associated with newly-assigned ingroups. Further, self-biases and ingroup-biases were positively correlated across individuals (Experiments 1 and 3). However, when the task was such that ingroup and self associations competed, only the self-advantage was detected (Experiment 2). These results demonstrate that even random group allocation quickly captures attention and enhances processing. Positive correlations between the self- and ingroup-biases suggest a common cognitive mechanism across individuals. These findings have implications for understanding how social biases filter our perception of the world.