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Speciesism in everyday language

Speciesism, like other forms of prejudice, is thought to be underpinned by biased patterns of language use. Thus far, however, psychological science has primarily focused on how speciesism is reflected in individuals' thoughts as opposed to wider collective systems of meaning such as language....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Leach, Stefan, Kitchin, Andrew P., Sutton, Robbie M., Dhont, Kristof
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10086848/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35906832
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12561
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author Leach, Stefan
Kitchin, Andrew P.
Sutton, Robbie M.
Dhont, Kristof
author_facet Leach, Stefan
Kitchin, Andrew P.
Sutton, Robbie M.
Dhont, Kristof
author_sort Leach, Stefan
collection PubMed
description Speciesism, like other forms of prejudice, is thought to be underpinned by biased patterns of language use. Thus far, however, psychological science has primarily focused on how speciesism is reflected in individuals' thoughts as opposed to wider collective systems of meaning such as language. We present a large‐scale quantitative test of speciesism by applying machine‐learning methods (word embeddings) to billions of English words derived from conversation, film, books, and the Internet. We found evidence of anthropocentric speciesism: words denoting concern (vs. indifference) and value (vs. valueless) were more closely associated with words denoting humans compared to many other animals. We also found evidence of companion animal speciesism: the same words were more closely associated with words denoting companion animals compared to most other animals. The work describes speciesism as a pervasive collective phenomenon that is evident in a naturally occurring expression of human psychology – everyday language.
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spelling pubmed-100868482023-04-12 Speciesism in everyday language Leach, Stefan Kitchin, Andrew P. Sutton, Robbie M. Dhont, Kristof Br J Soc Psychol Articles Speciesism, like other forms of prejudice, is thought to be underpinned by biased patterns of language use. Thus far, however, psychological science has primarily focused on how speciesism is reflected in individuals' thoughts as opposed to wider collective systems of meaning such as language. We present a large‐scale quantitative test of speciesism by applying machine‐learning methods (word embeddings) to billions of English words derived from conversation, film, books, and the Internet. We found evidence of anthropocentric speciesism: words denoting concern (vs. indifference) and value (vs. valueless) were more closely associated with words denoting humans compared to many other animals. We also found evidence of companion animal speciesism: the same words were more closely associated with words denoting companion animals compared to most other animals. The work describes speciesism as a pervasive collective phenomenon that is evident in a naturally occurring expression of human psychology – everyday language. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-07-30 2023-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10086848/ /pubmed/35906832 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12561 Text en © 2022 The Authors. British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Articles
Leach, Stefan
Kitchin, Andrew P.
Sutton, Robbie M.
Dhont, Kristof
Speciesism in everyday language
title Speciesism in everyday language
title_full Speciesism in everyday language
title_fullStr Speciesism in everyday language
title_full_unstemmed Speciesism in everyday language
title_short Speciesism in everyday language
title_sort speciesism in everyday language
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10086848/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35906832
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12561
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