Challenging the dehumanisation hypothesis

Why are out-group members referred to as nonhuman entities? Find out more from Dr Harriet Over.

Psychological models can only help improve intergroup relations if they accurately characterise the mechanisms underlying discrimination. The claim that outgroups suffer dehumanisation is near ubiquitous in the social sciences.

In this seminar Dr Harriet Over will present a series of theoretical and empirical challenges to the dehumanisation hypothesis. Using historical data she will argue that, even in supposedly prototypical examples of extreme dehumanisation, out-group members are not treated like nonhuman entities.

She will then present experimental data demonstrating that although out-group members may be denied some human qualities and states, they are attributed others. She will end the talk by offering an alternative account of why out-group members are sometimes referred to as nonhuman entities.