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Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis

Propagandists often compare members of stigmatized out-groups to nonhuman entities such as rats, lice, and snakes. Drawing on these horrifying descriptions, the dehumanization hypothesis proposes that out-group members are viewed as less than human and that being viewed as less than human renders th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Over, Harriet
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7809340/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32348704
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691620902133
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author Over, Harriet
author_facet Over, Harriet
author_sort Over, Harriet
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description Propagandists often compare members of stigmatized out-groups to nonhuman entities such as rats, lice, and snakes. Drawing on these horrifying descriptions, the dehumanization hypothesis proposes that out-group members are viewed as less than human and that being viewed as less than human renders them vulnerable to harm. I offer seven challenges to the dehumanization hypothesis. I argue that, even in supposedly prototypical examples of extreme dehumanization, out-group members are not treated like nonhuman entities. Furthermore, although out-group members may be denied some human qualities and states, they are attributed others. I also argue that there is reason to doubt the hypothesized causal connection between being viewed as less than human and being at risk of harm—some nonhuman organisms are treated with great care, and some groups are harmed because of how their uniquely human qualities are perceived. I close by offering an alternative account of why out-group members are sometimes referred to as nonhuman entities.
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spelling pubmed-78093402021-01-26 Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis Over, Harriet Perspect Psychol Sci The Dehumanization Hypothesis: Article, Commentaries, and Reply Propagandists often compare members of stigmatized out-groups to nonhuman entities such as rats, lice, and snakes. Drawing on these horrifying descriptions, the dehumanization hypothesis proposes that out-group members are viewed as less than human and that being viewed as less than human renders them vulnerable to harm. I offer seven challenges to the dehumanization hypothesis. I argue that, even in supposedly prototypical examples of extreme dehumanization, out-group members are not treated like nonhuman entities. Furthermore, although out-group members may be denied some human qualities and states, they are attributed others. I also argue that there is reason to doubt the hypothesized causal connection between being viewed as less than human and being at risk of harm—some nonhuman organisms are treated with great care, and some groups are harmed because of how their uniquely human qualities are perceived. I close by offering an alternative account of why out-group members are sometimes referred to as nonhuman entities. SAGE Publications 2020-04-29 2021-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7809340/ /pubmed/32348704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691620902133 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle The Dehumanization Hypothesis: Article, Commentaries, and Reply
Over, Harriet
Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis
title Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis
title_full Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis
title_fullStr Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis
title_full_unstemmed Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis
title_short Seven Challenges for the Dehumanization Hypothesis
title_sort seven challenges for the dehumanization hypothesis
topic The Dehumanization Hypothesis: Article, Commentaries, and Reply
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7809340/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32348704
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691620902133
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