Political (Meta-)Dehumanization in Mental Representations: Divergent Emphases in the Minds of Liberals Versus Conservatives.

We conducted two reverse-correlation studies, as well as two pilot studies reported in the online supplement (total N = 1,411), on the topics of (a) whether liberals and conservatives differ in the types of dehumanization that they cognitively emphasize when mentally representing one another, and if so, (b) whether liberals and conservatives are sensitive to how they are represented in the minds of political outgroup members. Results suggest that partisans indeed differ in the types of dehumanization that they cognitively emphasize when mentally representing one another: whereas conservatives' dehumanization of liberals emphasizes immaturity (vs. savagery), liberals' dehumanization of conservatives more strongly emphasizes savagery (vs. immaturity). In addition, results suggest that partisans may be sensitive to how they are represented. That is, partisans' meta-representations-their representations of how the outgroup represents the ingroup-appear to accurately index the relative emphases of these two dimensions in the minds of political outgroup members.

How reputation does (and does not) drive people to punish without looking.

Punishing wrongdoers can confer reputational benefits, and people sometimes punish without careful consideration. But are these observations related? Does reputation drive people to people to "punish without looking"? And if so, is this because unquestioning punishment looks particularly virtuous? To investigate, we assigned "Actors" to decide whether to sign punitive petitions about politicized issues ("punishment"), after first deciding whether to read articles opposing these petitions ("looking"). To manipulate reputation, we matched Actors with copartisan "Evaluators," varying whether Evaluators observed i) nothing about Actors' behavior, ii) whether Actors punished, or iii) whether Actors punished and whether they looked. Across four studies of Americans (total n = 10,343), Evaluators rated Actors more positively, and financially rewarded them, if they chose to (vs. not to) punish. Correspondingly, making punishment observable to Evaluators (i.e., moving from our first to second condition) drove Actors to punish more overall. Furthermore, because some of these individuals did not look, making punishment observable increased rates of punishment without looking. Yet punishers who eschewed opposing perspectives did not appear particularly virtuous. In fact, Evaluators preferred Actors who punished with (vs. without) looking. Correspondingly, making looking observable (i.e., moving from our second to third condition) drove Actors to look more overall-and to punish without looking at comparable or diminished rates. We thus find that reputation can encourage reflexive punishment-but simply as a byproduct of generally encouraging punishment, and not as a specific reputational strategy. Indeed, rather than fueling unquestioning decisions, spotlighting punishers' decision-making processes may encourage reflection.

James H. (Jim) Sidanius (1945-2021).

Memorializes Jim Sidanius (née James Brown [1945-2021]), one of the the foremost social and political psychologists of his generation. His theory of social dominance redefined the scientific study of intergroup relations, advancing novel hypotheses regarding the causes and consequences of intergroup conflict and inequality by integrating insights across the social and biological sciences. Jim's theoretical insights were matched only by his empirical prowess; he was a master at analyzing large data sets with advanced statistical methods, methods that he taught to hundreds of doctoral students over the years in his notoriously challenging but rewarding graduate statistics courses at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Harvard. Beyond his teaching of statistics and advanced topics in social psychology and African American studies, Jim mentored dozens of aspiring intergroup relations scholars over a 44-year career. As one of few Black social psychologists, he served as a role model for young Black scholars in particular. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Exposure to a media intervention helps promote support for peace in Colombia.

Whereas politicians broker peace deals, it falls to the public to embrace peace and help sustain it. The legacy of conflicts can make it difficult for people to support reconciling and reintegrating with former enemies. Here we create a five-minute media intervention from interviews we conducted with Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) ex-combatants in a Colombian demobilization camp and non-FARC Colombians in neighbouring communities. We show that exposure to the media intervention humanizes FARC ex-combatants and increases support for peace and reintegration. These effects persisted at least three months post-exposure, were replicated in an independent sample of non-FARC Colombians and affected both attitudes (for example, support for reintegration policies) and behaviour (for example, donations to organizations supporting ex-combatants). As predicted, the intervention's effects were mediated by changing conflict-associated cognitions-reducing the belief that ex-combatants are unwilling and unable to change-beyond affective pathways (for example, increased empathy or reduced prejudice).

Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges.

Despite our many differences, one superordinate category we all belong to is 'humans'. To strip away or overlook others' humanity, then, is to mark them as 'other' and, typically, 'less than'. We review growing evidence revealing how and why we subtly disregard the humanity of those around us. We then highlight new research suggesting that we continue to blatantly dehumanize certain groups, overtly likening them to animals, with important implications for intergroup hostility. We discuss advances in understanding the experience of being dehumanized and novel interventions to mitigate dehumanization, address the conceptual boundaries of dehumanization, and consider recent accounts challenging the importance of dehumanization and its role in intergroup violence. Finally, we present an agenda of outstanding questions to propel dehumanization research forward.

Beyond Black and White: Conceptualizing and essentializing Black-White identity.

OBJECTIVE: Psychological research suggests that Black-White individuals are often conceptualized as Black and White, and that essentialist beliefs about race are negatively associated with conceptualizing Black-White individuals as such. The present research examined what people think it means to be Black and White (e.g., a mixture of Black and White vs. completely Black and completely White) and whether essentialism is indeed negatively associated with such concepts. METHOD: We used multiple methodologies (e.g., surveys, open-ended explanations, experimental manipulations) to examine how Black, White, and Black-White perceivers conceptualized Black-White individuals (Studies 1-3) and the extent to which essentialist beliefs, both dispositional (Studies 2-3) and experimentally induced (Study 4), predicted those concepts. RESULTS: We find that U.S. Black-White individuals most often conceptualized "Black and White" to mean a mixture of Black and White (Study 1), as did U.S. White individuals and U.S. Black individuals (Studies 2 and 3), and that racial essentialism-both dispositional (Studies 2 and 3) and experimentally manipulated (Study 4)-was positively associated with this conception. CONCLUSION: Our data shed new light on the complexity of race concepts and essentialism and advance the psychological understanding of Black-White identity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Ideology selectively shapes attention to inequality.

Contemporary debates about addressing inequality require a common, accurate understanding of the scope of the issue at hand. Yet little is known about who notices inequality in the world around them and when. Across five studies (N = 8,779) employing various paradigms, we consider the role of ideological beliefs about the desirability of social equality in shaping individuals' attention to-and accuracy in detecting-inequality across the class, gender, and racial domains. In Study 1, individuals higher (versus lower) on social egalitarianism were more likely to naturalistically remark on inequality when shown photographs of urban scenes. In Study 2, social egalitarians were more accurate at differentiating between equal versus unequal distributions of resources between men and women on a basic cognitive task. In Study 3, social egalitarians were faster to notice inequality-relevant changes in images in a change detection paradigm indexing basic attentional processes. In Studies 4 and 5, we varied whether unequal treatment adversely affected groups at the top or bottom of society. In Study 4, social egalitarians were, on an incentivized task, more accurate at detecting inequality in speaking time in a panel discussion that disadvantaged women but not when inequality disadvantaged men. In Study 5, social egalitarians were more likely to naturalistically point out bias in a pattern detection hiring task when the employer was biased against minorities but not when majority group members faced equivalent bias. Our results reveal the nuances in how our ideological beliefs shape whether we accurately notice inequality, with implications for prospects for addressing it.

Intergroup Contact Reduces Dehumanization and Meta-Dehumanization: Cross-Sectional, Longitudinal, and Quasi-Experimental Evidence From 16 Samples in Five Countries.

In 16 independent samples from five countries involving ~7,700 participants, we employ a mixture of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and quasi-experimental methods to examine the effect of intergroup contact on (a) the blatant dehumanization of outgroups, and (b) the perception that outgroup members dehumanize the ingroup (meta-dehumanization). First, we conduct a meta-analysis across 12 survey samples collected from five countries regarding eight different target groups (total N = 5,388) and find a consistent effect of contact quality on dehumanization and meta-dehumanization. Second, we use a large longitudinal sample of American participants (N = 1,103) to show that quality of contact with Muslims at Time 1 predicts dehumanization of Muslims and meta-dehumanization 6 months later. Finally, we show that sustained semester-long "virtual contact" between American and Muslim college students is associated with reduced American students' (N = 487) dehumanization of, and perceived dehumanization by, Muslims.

Blatant dehumanization in the mind's eye: Prevalent even among those who explicitly reject it?

Research suggests that some people, particularly those on the political right, tend to blatantly dehumanize low-status groups. However, these findings have largely relied on self-report measures, which are notoriously subject to social desirability concerns. To better understand just how widely blatant forms of intergroup dehumanization might extend, the present article leverages an unobtrusive, data-driven perceptual task to examine how U.S. respondents mentally represent "Americans" versus "Arabs" (a low-status group in the United States that is often explicitly targeted with blatant dehumanization). Data from 2 reverse-correlation experiments (original N = 108; preregistered replication N = 336) and 7 rating studies (N = 2,301) suggest that U.S. respondents' mental representations of Arabs are significantly more dehumanizing than their representations of Americans. Furthermore, analyses indicate that this phenomenon is not reducible to a general tendency for our sample to mentally represent Arabs more negatively than Americans. Finally, these findings reveal that blatantly dehumanizing representations of Arabs can be just as prevalent among individuals exhibiting low levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., liberals) as among individuals exhibiting high levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., conservatives)-a phenomenon into which exploratory analyses suggest liberals may have only limited awareness. Taken together, these results suggest that blatant dehumanization may be more widespread than previously recognized and that it can persist even in the minds of those who explicitly reject it. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of group-based egalitarianism in collective action.

Whereas social dominance theory has historically been used to understand the dynamics of group-based hierarchy and oppression, it has seldom been used to understand the dynamics of social change toward greater equality. We review a growing body of research that takes seriously the psychology of individuals who are interested in group-based equality and hierarchy challenge - those lower (versus higher) in social dominance orientation (SDO). This emerging research documents that lower SDO individuals are more likely to support hierarchy-attenuating policies and collective action, and identifies underlying mechanisms (e.g. perceptions of injustice). Moreover, this research suggests that egalitarian ideology can help account for efforts to change the hierarchal status quo, even among high status group members who materially benefit from the extant hierarchy.

Introducing the Sociopolitical Motive × Intergroup Threat Model to Understand How Monoracial Perceivers' Sociopolitical Motives Influence Their Categorization of Multiracial People.

Researchers have used social dominance, system justification, authoritarianism, and social identity theories to understand how monoracial perceivers' sociopolitical motives influence their categorization of multiracial people. The result has been a growing understanding of how particular sociopolitical motives and contexts affect categorization, without a unifying perspective to integrate these insights. We review evidence supporting each theory's predictions concerning how monoracial perceivers categorize multiracial people who combine their ingroup with an outgroup, with attention to the moderating role of perceiver group status. We find most studies cannot arbitrate between theories of categorization and reveal additional gaps in the literature. To advance this research area, we introduce the sociopolitical motive × intergroup threat model of racial categorization that (a) clarifies which sociopolitical motives interact with which intergroup threats to predict categorization and (b) highlights the role of perceiver group status. Furthermore, we consider how our model can help understand phenomena beyond multiracial categorization.

Incorporating insights about intergroup power and dominance to help increase harmony and equality between groups in conflict.

Human societies are organized into group-based hierarchies, with some groups enjoying the privileges of being on top and others struggling at the bottom. The position groups occupy in the hierarchy fundamentally shape their psychology, influencing their perception of and orientation toward the status quo and their perspectives and needs in conflict. Despite a growing body of interventions designed to reduce group-based conflict, the role of group power in shaping the effectiveness of these approaches remains underappreciated. We first review the psychological consequences of group power. We then highlight how overlooking this psychology can result in intervention efforts to reduce conflict that are either ineffective or successfully increase intergroup harmony but do so at the cost of entrenching inequality. We conclude with recommendations for incorporating insights from research on group power to develop approaches that help to achieve both greater intergroup harmony and equality.

Determining our destiny: Do restrictions to collective autonomy fuel collective action?

Groups experience collective autonomy restriction whenever they perceive that other groups attempt to limit the freedom of their group to determine and express its own identity. We argue that collective autonomy restriction motivates groups (both structurally advantaged and disadvantaged) to improve their power position within the social hierarchy. Four studies spanning real-world (Studies 1 and 2) and lab-based (Studies 3 and 4) intergroup contexts supported these ideas. In Study 1 (N = 311), Black Americans' (a relatively disadvantaged group) experience of collective autonomy restriction was associated with greater support for collective action, and less system justification. In Study 2, we replicated these findings with another sample of Black Americans (N = 292). We also found that collective autonomy restriction was positively associated with White Americans' (a relatively advantaged group, N = 294) support for collective action and ideologies that bolster White's dominant position. In Study 3 (N = 387, 97 groups), groups that were susceptible to being controlled by a high-power group (i.e., were of low structural power) desired group power more when their collective autonomy was restricted (vs. supported). In Study 4 (N = 803, 257 groups) experiencing collective autonomy restriction (vs. support) increased low-power group members' support of collective action, decreased system justification, and evoked hostile emotions, both when groups were and were not materially exploited (by being tasked with more than their fair share of work). Across studies, we differentiate collective autonomy restriction from structural group power, other forms of injustice, group agency, and group identification. These findings indicate that collective autonomy restriction uniquely motivates collective behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A collective blame hypocrisy intervention enduringly reduces hostility towards Muslims.

Hostility towards outgroups contributes to costly intergroup conflict. Here we test an intervention to reduce hostility towards Muslims, a frequently targeted outgroup. Our 'collective blame hypocrisy' intervention highlights the hypocrisy involved in the tendency for people to collectively blame outgroup but not ingroup members for blameworthy actions of individual group members. Using both within-subject and between-subject comparisons in a preregistered longitudinal study in Spain, we find that our intervention reduces collective blame of Muslims and downstream anti-Muslim sentiments relative to a matched control condition and that the effects of the intervention persist one month and also one year later. We replicate the benefits of the intervention in a second study. The effects are mediated by reductions in collective blame and moderated by individual differences in preference for consistency. Together, these data illustrate that the collective blame hypocrisy intervention enduringly reduces harmful intergroup attitudes associated with conflict escalation, particularly among those who value consistency in themselves and others.

A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election coincided with the rise of the "alternative right," or alt-right. Alt-right associates have wielded considerable influence on the current administration and on social discourse, but the movement's loose organizational structure has led to disparate portrayals of its members' psychology and made it difficult to decipher its aims and reach. To systematically explore the alt-right's psychology, we recruited two U.S. samples: An exploratory sample through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 827, alt-right n = 447) and a larger, nationally representative sample through the National Opinion Research Center's Amerispeak panel (N = 1,283, alt-right n = 71-160, depending on the definition). We estimate that 6% of the U.S. population and 10% of Trump voters identify as alt-right. Alt-right adherents reported a psychological profile more reflective of the desire for group-based dominance than economic anxiety. Although both the alt-right and non-alt-right Trump voters differed substantially from non-alt-right, non-Trump voters, the alt-right and Trump voters were quite similar, differing mainly in the alt-right's especially high enthusiasm for Trump, suspicion of mainstream media, trust in alternative media, and desire for collective action on behalf of Whites. We argue for renewed consideration of overt forms of bias in contemporary intergroup research.

Justice reactions to deviant ingroup members: Ingroup identity threat motivates utilitarian punishments.

To maintain a positive overall view of their group, people judge likeable ingroup members more favourably and deviant ingroup members more harshly than comparable outgroup members. Research suggests that such derogation of deviant ingroup members aims to restore the image of the group by symbolically excluding so-called 'black sheeps'. We hypothesized that information about a harm-doer's group membership influences observers' justice-seeking reactions. Motives for punishment vary based on whether the goal is to punish past harm-doing (i.e., retributive motives), help harm-doers recognize the harm inflicted and reintegrate into society (i.e., restorative motives), or control harm-doer's future behaviour through incapacitating practices and exclusion from society (i.e., utilitarian motives). We hypothesized that immoral behaviours by ingroup rather than outgroup members jeopardize the group's reputation and therefore activate utilitarian (i.e., exclusion-oriented) motives for punishment. Study 1 (N = 187) confirmed that people displayed more utilitarian motives and less restorative motives when sanctioning an ingroup as opposed to an outgroup harm-doer. Study 2 (N = 122) manipulated typicality to the ingroup. Participants displayed stronger utilitarian (i.e., exclusion-oriented) punishment motives when the harm-doer was presented as a typical ingroup rather than an outgroup member. Study 3 (N = 292) replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 and further showed that people displayed stronger utilitarian punishments against an ingroup offender through the experience of increased identity threat. Contrary to our expectations, observers' ingroup identification did not moderate the effect of group membership or typicality to the ingroup on justice reactions. Yet, ingroup identification influenced both experienced identity threat (i.e., mediator) and utilitarian motives for punishment with high identifiers experiencing higher threat and displaying stronger utilitarian punishment motive. We discuss the results in terms of people's concern for the protection of their group identity.

Political ideology shapes the amplification of the accomplishments of disadvantaged vs. advantaged group members.

Recent years have witnessed an increased public outcry in certain quarters about a perceived lack of attention given to successful members of disadvantaged groups relative to equally meritorious members of advantaged groups, exemplified by social media campaigns centered around hashtags, such as #OscarsSoWhite and #WomenAlsoKnowStuff. Focusing on political ideology, we investigate here whether individuals differentially amplify successful targets depending on whether these targets belong to disadvantaged or advantaged groups, behavior that could help alleviate or entrench group-based disparities. Study 1 examines over 500,000 tweets from over 160,000 Twitter users about 46 unambiguously successful targets varying in race (white, black) and gender (male, female): American gold medalists from the 2016 Olympics. Leveraging advances in computational social science, we identify tweeters' political ideology, race, and gender. Tweets from political liberals were much more likely than those from conservatives to be about successful black (vs. white) and female (vs. male) gold medalists (and especially black females), controlling for tweeters' own race and gender, and even when tweeters themselves were white or male (i.e., advantaged group members). Studies 2 and 3 provided experimental evidence that liberals are more likely than conservatives to differentially amplify successful members of disadvantaged (vs. advantaged) groups and suggested that this is driven by liberals' heightened concern with social equality. Addressing theorizing about ideological asymmetries, we observed that political liberals are more responsible than conservatives for differential amplification. Our results highlight ideology's polarizing power to shape even whose accomplishments we promote, and extend theorizing about behavioral manifestations of egalitarian motives.

Whose Side Are You On? Asian Americans' Mistrust of Asian-White Biracials Predicts More Exclusion From the Ingroup.

We investigated Asian Americans' perceptions of Asian-White biracials. Because the Asian/White boundary may be more permeable than other minority/White boundaries, we reasoned that Asian Americans are more likely than Black Americans to be skeptical of biracials, perceiving that biracials would prefer to identify as White and would be disloyal to Asians, consequently categorizing them as more outgroup. We further reasoned that Asian Americans' concerns about and exclusion of biracials would be predicted by greater perceived discrimination against Asian Americans, which increases the incentive for biracials to pass into the higher status racial group. Studies 1 and 2 provided correlational support for these theorized relationships among Asian Americans. Study 2 showed that perceived discrimination did not increase Black Americans' concerns about biracials' identity preferences and loyalty. Studies 3 and 4 provided causal evidence for the roles of perceived discrimination and biracial identity preferences, respectively, in Asian Americans' exclusion of biracials.

Denying humanity: The distinct neural correlates of blatant dehumanization.

Recent behavioral work demonstrates that many people view low-status groups as less "evolved and civilized" than high-status groups. Are these people using blatant expressions of dehumanization simply to express strong dislike toward other groups? Or is blatant dehumanization a process distinct from other negative assessments? We tested these competing hypotheses using functional neuroimaging. Participants judged 10 groups (e.g., Europeans, Muslims, rats) on four scales: blatant dehumanization, dislike, dissimilarity and perceived within-group homogeneity. Consistent with expectations, neural responses when making ratings of dehumanization diverged from those when judging the same targets on the other related dimensions. Specifically, we found regions in the left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and left inferior frontal cortex (IFC) that were selectively parametrically modulated by dehumanization ratings. The pattern of responses in the left IFC was also consistent with animalistic dehumanization: high responses to low-status human groups and animals, and lower responses to high-status human groups. By contrast, a region in the posterior cingulate cortex was parametrically sensitive specifically to liking. We therefore demonstrate a double dissociation between brain activity associated with judgments of blatant dehumanization and judgments of dislike. (PsycINFO Database Record