Source of article The Jury Room - Keene Trial Consulting.
Lately we’ve heard a lot more anti-immigrant bias expressed in public and it turns out, hate speech breeds hatred of its own. This research has pretty frightening findings and you may find it hard to believe there is such misinformed hatred in 2017. Or, perhaps you won’t find it hard to believe at all.
We will just share a few of the disturbing findings here:
The researchers (from Northwestern University) showed American participants (recruited via the internet through online subject pools and via email through university channels) the ‘Ascent of Man’ diagram (which is apparently popular in research circles and conveniently illustrates this post). They asked participants identify where they thought (whole groups of) people belonged on this scale “from the ape-like human ancestor to the modern human”. You likely can guess if you regularly read this blog what happened.
Participants placed Muslims and Mexican immigrants significantly lower on the scale than they placed Americans as a whole.
In other words, the participants saw Muslim and Mexican immigrants as significantly less than fully human. In an attempt to understand this better, the researchers statistically controlled for conservative views and racial prejudice, but still found differences.
Those participants who dehumanized Muslim and Mexican immigrants by placing them lower on the ‘Ascent of Man’ scale were also more likely to see them as threatening, to withhold sympathy for them and to support measures like increased surveillance, restricted immigration and increased deportation.
Overall, say the researchers, “the correlation between dehumanization and then-candidate Trump was significantly stronger than the correlation between dehumanization and support for any other Democratic or Republican candidates”.
And what did that dehumanization result in? The researchers asked Muslim and Mexican immigrants to report how dehumanized they felt, and found the greater the perception of dehumanization, the more likely the individual was to support violent versus non-violent collective action.
For example, Mexican immigrants who felt dehumanized by candidate Trump “were more likely to dehumanize him, want to see him personally suffer, and endorse hostile actions such as spitting in his face”.
Further, Muslims who felt dehumanized also favored violent over non-violent collective actions and were less willing to assist in anti-terrorism efforts by law enforcement.
The authors suggest two results from dehumanization of others:
Those who dehumanize are more likely to support hostile policies.
Those who feel dehumanized feel less integrated into society and are more likely to endorse violent as opposed to nonviolent responses in return (which will reinforce the idea among those who dehumanize that “these people are like animals”).
Ultimately, this results in a “vicious cycle” of what the researchers call meta-dehumanization, and make life less safe for all of us. Previous research, reported by the authors, tells us marginalization leads to radicalization.
In other words, say the authors, the subset of the American public spewing hate speech toward immigrants may result in radicalization and subsequent violence from those they hate (and dehumanize) and thus, make their fear-based prophecy come true.
Kteily, N., & Brunei, E. (2017). Backlash: The politics and real-world consequences of minority group dehumanization. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43 (1), 87-104
