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To what extent is research on infrahumanization confounded by intergroup preference?
Carl Bunce1,2, Adam Eggleston1,3, Robert Brennan1,4
1Department of Psychology, University of York, York, Yorkshire, UK.
Royal Society Open Science
|April 17, 2025
Summary
Infrahumanization theory, a key account of dehumanization, may be flawed. A systematic review reveals that studies often confound uniquely human emotions with prosociality, impacting discrimination research.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Infrahumanization theory posits that outgroups are dehumanized by denying them uniquely human emotions.
- Recent critiques suggest a confound where "uniquely human" emotions are also more prosocial than shared emotions.
- This confound may explain apparent dehumanization as intergroup preference rather than subtle discrimination.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review the infrahumanization literature and quantify the prevalence of the humanness-prosociality confound.
- To assess the impact of this methodological issue on social psychological research and understanding of discrimination.
Main Methods:
- Conducted a systematic review of 152 studies on infrahumanization.
- Extracted emotion terms used in these studies.
- Collected participant ratings on the perceived humanness and prosociality of these emotion terms.
- Calculated the percentage of studies confounded by the humanness-prosociality overlap.
Main Results:
- Across all 152 studies reviewed, 79.6% exhibited the humanness-prosociality confound.
- In the 10 most cited papers, 95.5% of reported studies were confounded.
- This indicates a pervasive methodological problem in infrahumanization research.
Conclusions:
- The prevalence of the humanness-prosociality confound challenges the reliability of existing social psychological data on dehumanization.
- This methodological issue significantly impacts our understanding of intergroup relations and discrimination.
- A new, freely accessible tool is introduced to help researchers create rigorously controlled emotion stimulus sets.
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