Animalizar y mecanizardos formas de deshumanización

Resumen

Dehumanization is defined as people¿s tendency to perceive the outgroup as being less human than the ingroup (for reviews, see Haslam, Loughnan, Kashima, & Bain, 2008; Leyens, Demoulin, Vaes, Gaunt, & Paladino, 2007, Vaes, Leyens, Paladino and Pires Miranda, 2012). Thus, it might be thought that groups that are denied humanness will be discriminated against to a greater degree than groups considered to be fully human (Vala, Pereira and Leyens, 2009). Indeed, as Leyens et al. (2007) pointed out, this process has subtle and important consequences in our daily lives that can affect intergroup relations. Furthermore, according to Haslam (2006), dehumanization can be manifested in two forms: animalistic and mechanistic. In his model, the author posited how individuals can be likened to animals, and hence, they will be perceived as unintelligent, immoral, coarse or uncivilized. Likewise, people can also be seen as robots or machines, in which case, they will be perceived as cold, rigid, mechanical, or lacking emotions or agency. The present dissertation used the model by Haslam in order to analyse and compare these two forms of dehumanization. In our analysis, we will attempt to clarify how animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization affect intergroup relations. This insight was the basis for the development of different empirical studies that form part of this thesis. Accordingly, the chapters included in this dissertation are built on experimental research and show some results related to the different senses of humanness, the creation of new procedures to capture them and discriminate between animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization, and the study of the consequences that both forms of dehumanization have on different interpersonal and intergroup measures. The thesis is structured in four chapters. The first chapter is a theoretical review of the most relevant literature on infrahumanization and dehumanization. Specifically, it provides theoretical support for the main sections included in this dissertation: the different senses of humanness; the various forms of measuring animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization; the consequences of dehumanization reported in the literature. The second chapter includes the main goals set in the thesis, as well as our hypotheses. The reader will find the empirical part of the dissertation from chapter 3 onwards. Eleven studies are presented across four papers. Lastly, in the fourth chapter, we discuss the main findings and analyse the theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and also some ideas for future research. It should be noted that the papers presented in the third chapter of the thesis were written with the intention of being submitted for publication, therefore, certain explanations of basic concepts and theories inevitably appear several times. Additionally, in order to fulfill the requirements of the International PhD program at Granada University, some chapters were written in Spanish (chapter 1), and others in English (chapters 2, 3 and 4).