Older people and death-thought accessibility: The association between death and older people in memory.

This work aimed to conceptually replicate and extend Martens, Greenberg, Schimel, and Landau's findings about older people as threatening future self. We conducted two studies using a lexical decision task to measure death-thought accessibility. Results showed that older people primes lead to stronger facilitation of death-related compared, with negative words. Such a facilitation is not observed with young people primes (Study 1). Moreover, the automatic association between the representation of older people and death was stronger when participants and older people primes were of the same sex (Study 2). Implications of these findings with respect to ageism are discussed.

Examining the role of fundamental psychological needs in the development of metadehumanization: A multi-population approach.

In the present paper, we investigate dehumanization processes from a victim perspective. We propose that dehumanization experiences, that is metadehumanization, arise from people's feelings that their fundamental human needs are thwarted and that such experiences influence their emotions, self-esteem, and coping strategies. Our model is put at test in three contexts involving different types of dehumanization victims: Women (Study 1a, N = 349), patients with severe alcohol use disorder (Study 1b, N = 120), and employees in organizations (Study 1c, N = 347). Our integrated model of metadehumanization, which considers both its antecedents and consequences, proved stable across contexts and populations and therefore helps building bridges between different psychological disciplines in which dehumanization occurs.

Animalistic dehumanization of older people by younger ones: Variations of humanness perceptions as a function of a target's age.

The present work investigated associations of older people with humanness. Focusing on complementary approaches (attribute-based, metaphor-based, and target-based), 4 studies tested the hypothesis that older people are the targets of animalistic dehumanization. Using an emotional attribution task, Study 1 (N = 112) explored infrahumanization and shows that young participants attributed more uniquely human emotions to young people than to older ones. No such effect occurred with regards to nonuniquely human emotions. Results of Study 2 (N = 62) replicated this result using a lexical-decision task. Using the metaphor-based approach, Study 3 (N = 99) confirmed that older people's dehumanization is restricted to its animalistic form and does not extend to the mechanistic one. Finally, in Study 4 (N = 167), we used a target-based approach and showed that characteristics initially attributed to older people are perceived as denoting lesser humanness than when these same characteristics are associated with younger people. Results of the 4 studies provide evidence for an animalistic form of dehumanization of older people by younger ones. Limits, implications, and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record