Understanding dehumanization: The role of agency and communion

Formanowicz, Magdalena; Goldenberg, Amit; Saguy, Tamar; Pietraszkiewicz, Agnieszka; Walker, Mirella; Gross, James J.

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.04.003

Cited by 27 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…These results could be interpreted in line with previous literature suggesting that negative actions are linked with agency and consequently with humanness [ 25 ]. Agency is a core element of attributions of humanness [ 53 ] and could be associated with both positive and negative behaviors [ 25 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanness Is Not Always Positive: Automatic Associations between Incivilities and Human Symbols

Rodríguez-Gómez

Delgado

Betancor

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Uncivil behavior involves an attack on social norms related to the protection of public property and respect for community life. However, at the same time, the low-frequency and relatively low-intensity damage caused by most of these behaviors could lead to incivilities being considered a typically human action. The purpose of this set of studies is to examine the automatic associations that people establish between humanness and both civic and uncivil behaviors. Across three studies, uncivil behaviors were more strongly associated with human pictures than animal pictures (study 1) and with human-related words than animal-related words (study 2). We replicated study 2 with uncivil behaviors that do not prime graphically human beings (study 3). Overall, our results showed that uncivil behaviors and civic behaviors were clearly associated with human concepts. Our findings have direct implications for the conceptualization of humanness and its denial.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanness Is Not Always Positive: Automatic Associations between Incivilities and Human Symbols

Rodríguez-Gómez

Delgado

Betancor

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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“…Уже сейчас существуют отдельные попытки рассматривать «человечность» через теории разума (mind theory), операционализируя данное понятие через атрибуцию человеку различных психи-ческих процессов и состояний (например, [37]), или через характеристики активности (agency) и коммуникативности (communion) [29]. Кроме того, возможна не только «уничижительная», но и «возвеличивающая» дегуманизация, когда человек наделяется сверхчеловеческими способностями или обожествляется.…”

Section: заключениеunclassified

Dehumanization: Approaches to Indirect Prejudice

Agadullina

2021

Social Psychology and Society

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Objective. The presented review aims to describe and critically analyze the two most popular approaches to understanding and operationalizing the concepts of “humanity” and “dehumanization” (Infrahumanization theory and Two-dimensional model of humanness). Background. The studies of prejudice has identified two key problems. The first problem is associated with the limitations of existing theories in understanding the nature of prejudices, and the second — with a low efficiency of assessing blatant prejudice since an increasing spread of egalitarian attitudes in the world changes the intergroup relations and contributes to a transformation of explicit prejudices into indirect forms. The theories and models of dehumanization has become the response to these problems since they offer a new conceptual framework for the analysis of intergroup and interpersonal relationships, and new methods for assessing indirect prejudice that are independent of a social desirability. Conclusions. The results of a theoretical analysis showed that in psychological studies, “humanity” is operationalized either through the unique human emotions and traits, the negation of which leads to the association between certain individuals or groups with animals and the emergence of animalistic dehumanization, or through a description of the “human” prototype, the discrepancy to which is associated with mechanistic dehumanization. Animalistic dehumanization is more common in the context of intergroup relations, and mechanistic dehumanization is more related to the processes of self-perception. Despite the contradictions between different approaches to understanding humanity and dehumanization, as well as some methodological problems within each of them, dehumanization is recognized as an important phenomenon which significantly enriches psychological knowledge and understanding of a process of social cognition and interaction.

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“…Second, intentions and cognitions, the capacities to set and reflect on goals, act and influence events and beings [41], are at the core of the mechanistic dehumanization [30], [31]. Dehumanizing targets are often associated with a decrease of intentions and cognitions attributions [42]. On the contrary, humanizing robots is associated with an increase of intentions and cognitions attributions to robots [33].…”

Section: Humanization Tendencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Different models of anthropomorphism across cultures and ontological limits in current frameworks the integrative framework of anthropomorphism

Spatola¹,

Marchesi²,

Wykowska³

2021

Preprint

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Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to ascribe nonhuman agents with characteristics and capacities such as cognitions, intentions, or emotions. Due to the increased interest in social robotic, anthropomorphism has become a core concept of human-robot interaction (HRI) studies. However, the wide use of this concept resulted in an interchangeability of its definition along with a lack of integrative approaches. In the present study, we propose a framework of anthropomorphism encompassing three levels of integration: cultural (i.e. animism beliefs), individual (i.e. mentalization, spiritualization, humanization tendencies), and attributional (i.e. cognition, emotion, intention attributions). We also acknowledge the westernized bias of the current view of anthropomorphism and develop a cross-cultural approach. In two studies, participants from different cultures completed various tasks and questionnaires assessing their animism beliefs, individual tendencies to imbue robots with mental properties (i.e. mentalization), spirit (i.e. spiritualization), and consider them as more or less human (i.e. humanization). We also evaluated their attributions of mental anthropomorphic characteristics to robots (i.e. cognition, emotion, intention). Our results demonstrate, in both experiments, that the three levels model reliably explain the collected data and that culture modulates the integration point of the cultural beliefs at the individual level. In addition, in experiment 2, the analyses show a more anthropocentric view of the mind for Western than East-Asian participants do. As such, Western perception of robots depends more on humanization while mentalization is the core of the East-Asian participant model. We further discuss these results in relation to the anthropomorphism literature and argue for the use of integrative cross-cultural model in HRI research.

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Understanding dehumanization: The role of agency and communion

Cited by 27 publications

References 88 publications

Humanness Is Not Always Positive: Automatic Associations between Incivilities and Human Symbols

Humanness Is Not Always Positive: Automatic Associations between Incivilities and Human Symbols

Dehumanization: Approaches to Indirect Prejudice

Different models of anthropomorphism across cultures and ontological limits in current frameworks the integrative framework of anthropomorphism

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