To eliminate violence, we must understand the psychological motives that drive it. Dehumanization, the explicit and blatant denial of an outgroup's humanity, may be one such driver. A compelling hypothesis in the social sciences holds that dehumanization disengages moral inhibitions against harming fellow human beings, thereby facilitating extreme violence. The dehumanization of an outgroup is often intertwined with intense negative affect toward them. Thus, some have argued that so-called “dehumanization” instead reflects an expression of extreme dislike toward outgroups (who are nonetheless perceived to be fully human).
We are empirically testing whether dehumanization is reducible to intense negative sentiment, or if it offers unique leverage in explaining support for extreme intergroup violence. We are approaching this question through three complementary research streams. First, we are meta-analyzing the existing empirical literature on dehumanization, dislike, and support for violence to derive empirical conclusions about these constructs’ relations. Second, we examine whether these meta-analytic results generalize to three distinct cultural contexts where extreme intergroup violence is a real and present danger. Third, we aim to mitigate support for such violence by reducing dehumanization. Collectively, this work is positioned to advance our understanding of the psychology driving intergroup violence, and consequently, inform efforts to ameliorate it.
