Not quite human: Infrahumanization in response to collective responsibility for intergroup killing.

TLDR

Infrahumanization is proposed as a strategy to restore psychological equilibrium when facing self‑threatening situations, potentially alongside reparative actions toward the out‑group. The study investigates whether awareness of in‑group‑perpetrated violence increases infrahumanization of the out‑group. Infrahumanization was operationalized as a lower tendency to attribute uniquely human emotions to the out‑group. Across three experiments, awareness of in‑group mass killings heightened infrahumanization of the out‑group, an effect driven by perceived collective responsibility and occurring alongside but independent of collective guilt.

Abstract

The present research examines how awareness of violence perpetrated against an out-group by one's in-group can intensify the infrahumanization of the out-group, as measured by a reduced tendency to accord uniquely human emotions to out-groups. Across 3 experiments that used different in-groups (humans, British, White Americans) and out-groups (aliens, Australian Aborigines, and Native Americans), when participants were made aware of the in-group's mass killing of the out-group, they infrahumanized the victims more. The perception of collective responsibility, not just the knowledge that the out-group members had died in great numbers, was shown to be necessary for this effect. Infrahumanization also occurred concurrently with increased collective guilt but was unrelated to it. It is proposed that infrahumanization may be a strategy for people to reestablish psychological equanimity when confronted with a self-threatening situation and that such a strategy may occur concomitantly with other strategies, such as providing reparations to the out-group.