Filthy Animals: Integrating the Behavioral Immune System and Disgust into a Model of Prophylactic Dehumanization

Abstract

The behavioral immune system (BIS) is an evolved psychological mechanism that motivates prophylactic avoidance of disease vectors by eliciting disgust. When felt toward social groups, disgust can dampen empathy and promote dehumanization. Therefore, we investigated whether the BIS facilitates the dehumanization of groups associated with disease by inspiring disgust toward them. An initial content analysis found that Nazi propaganda predominantly dehumanized Jews by portraying them as disease vectors or contaminants. This inspired three correlational studies supporting a Prophylactic Dehumanization Model in which the BIS predicted disgust toward disease-relevant outgroups, and this disgust in turn accounted for the dehumanization of these groups. In a final study, we found this process of prophylactic dehumanization had a downstream effect on increasing anti-immigrant attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, consistent with the evolutionary logic of a functionally flexible BIS, this effect only occurred when the threat of COVID-19 was salient. The implications of these results for the study of dehumanization and evolutionary theories of xenophobia are discussed. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40806-021-00296-8.

Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges

“…Overt blatant dehumanization has now been observed across a number of domains, including in American political partisans' attitudes toward the other party [61][62][63], alt-right adherents' attitudes towards a wide range of minority groups [64], attitudes toward Asian-Americans during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic [65,66], and even among young children considering hypothetical outgroups [67]. A growing body of research further considers targets' experience of feeling blatantly dehumanized, finding that such meta-dehumanization can contribute to vicious cycles of intergroup hostility (Box 1).…”

Reducing Explicit Blatant Dehumanization by Correcting Exaggerated Meta-Perceptions

“…Substantial numbers of Democrats and Republicans explicitly, blatantly dehumanize one another (Cassese, 2021; Landry, Ihm, Kwit & Schooler, 2021; Moore-Berg et al, 2020). Perhaps because of its overt nature, partisans recognize that out-partisans explicitly, blatantly dehumanize them and even think they do so to a far greater extent than is actually the case.…”

Dehumanization and mass violence: A study of mental state language in Nazi propaganda (1927–1945)

“…Indeed, although our conception of dehumanization as mind denial offered us a precise conceptualization of the construct [ 56 ] and a well-validated empirical tool to operationalize it (the MPD; [ 36 ]), dehumanization can take many forms other than mind denial [ 57 ]. Consistent with the possibility that the Nazis attributed the Jews agency while also ascribing them repulsively subhuman qualities, Nazi propaganda frequently equated Jews to disgusting animals and diseases [ 58 ]. Therefore, we encourage future research to examine dehumanization in genocidal contexts with broader operationalizations of the construct (see [ 11 ]).…”

“…For instance, Nazi propaganda likening Jews to infectious diseases is thought to have motivated support for their attempted extermination [24,[28][29][30]. Indeed, terms related to health and purity increased in Nazi propaganda preceding the Holocaust (see also [58]). We also bolster claims that Nazi propaganda contributed to the Holocaust by the finding that death terms in such propaganda steadily increased leading up to its onset [25,[31][32][33].…”