Outgroup members are not thought to experience all secondary emotions less intensely; rather, they are thought to experience prosocial emotions less intensely but antisocial emotions more intensely

Enock, Florence, Steven Tipper, and Harriet Over. 2020. “No Convincing Evidence That Outgroup Members Are Dehumanised: Revisiting Trait and Emotion Attribution in Intergroup Bias.” PsyArXiv. March 18. doi:10.31234/osf.io/hm82y

Abstract: We challenge the prevalent claim that outgroup members are dehumanised. In study 1, we conducted a systematic content analysis of historical documents from Nazi Germany and showed that, even in these supposedly prototypical cases of extreme dehumanisation, victims are described in ways that only make sense when applied to humans. In studies 2a-c, we test Haslam’s influential dual model of dehumanisation. We show that outgroup members are thought to possess positive human attributes to a lesser extent but negative human attributes to a greater extent. In study 3, we test Leyens’ prominent infrahumanisation model and demonstrate that, contrary to a body of previous work, outgroup members are not thought to experience all secondary emotions less intensely. Rather, they are thought to experience prosocial emotions less intensely but antisocial emotions more intensely. In a final study, we question the hypothesised relationship between dehumanisation and modulation of prosocial behaviour. We demonstrate that describing someone in uniquely human terms can actually reduce prosociality towards them when those terms are antisocial. Taken together, these studies cast doubt on the claim that representing others as ‘less human’ holds explanatory power in the study of intergroup bias.