Dehumanization

thumb|[[Lynndie England pulling a leash attached to the neck of a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison, who is forced to crawl on the floor, while Megan Ambuhl watches, 2003.]]

Dehumanization is the process, practice, or act of denying full humanity in others, along with the cruelty and suffering that accompany it. It involves perceiving individuals or groups as lacking essential human qualities, such as secondary emotions and mental capacities, thereby placing them outside the bounds of moral concern.

Dehumanization can be overt or subtle, and typically manifests in two primary forms: animalistic dehumanization, which denies uniquely human traits like civility, culture, or rationality and likens others to animals; as well as other crimes against humanity,

Conceptualizations

thumb|Slain Armenians in [[Erzurum as part of Hamidian massacre]]

Behaviorally, dehumanization describes a disposition towards others that debases the others' individuality by either portraying it as an "individual" species or by portraying it as an "individual" object (e.g., someone who acts inhumanely towards humans). As a process, dehumanization may be understood as the opposite of personification, a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities; dehumanization then is the disendowment of these same qualities or a reduction to abstraction.

Dehumanization can occur in both absolute and relative forms. Absolute dehumanization involves perceiving a group as entirely devoid of human qualities, while relative dehumanization entails attributing fewer human characteristics to one group in comparison to another. In contrast, subtle dehumanization, often referred to as infrahumanization, manifests in the implicit belief that members of out-groups possess fewer uniquely human emotions or traits. Also, the distinction between animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization lies not only in their content but also in the typical contexts of application. Animalistic dehumanization is primarily observed on intergroup dynamics, In contrast, mechanistic dehumanization tends to occur in interpersonal settings, Unlike people who are stigmatized or marginalized but still recognized as normatively human, individuals who are dehumanized are perceived as fundamentally lacking in essential human qualities and moral worth. This distinction is significant because moral inclusion often imposes limits on how individuals may be treated, whereas dehumanization removes such constraints, enabling more extreme forms of violence and exclusion. It may also intensify intergroup conflict by sharpening distinctions between in-groups and out-groups. Beyond its role in facilitating violence, dehumanization can serve several social and psychological functions. These include legitimizing harm such as exploitation, submission, or killing by reducing moral restraint, managing existential anxieties through the projection of one's fears and vulnerabilities, and reinforcing social stratification or defending the status quo.

Dehumanization has been examined across various disciplines as a mechanism that reinforces social hierarchies and exclusion. Besides infrahumanization, it is conceptually related to delegitimization, moral exclusion, and objectification.

Humanness

In Herbert Kelman's work on dehumanization, humanness has two features: "identity" (i.e., a perception of the person "as an individual, independent and distinguishable from others, capable of making choices") and "community" (i.e., a perception of the person as "part of an interconnected network of individuals who care for each other"). When a target's agency and embeddedness in a community are denied, they no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses and may suffer violence.

Objectification

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts argued that the sexual objectification of women extends beyond pornography (which emphasizes women's bodies over their uniquely human mental and emotional characteristics) to society generally. There is a normative emphasis on female appearance that causes women to take a third-person perspective on their bodies. The psychological distance women may feel from their bodies might cause them to dehumanize themselves. Some research has indicated that women and men exhibit a "sexual body part recognition bias", in which women's sexual body parts are better recognized when presented in isolation than in their entire bodies. In contrast, men's sexual body parts are better recognized in the context of their entire bodies than in isolation. Men who dehumanize women as either animals or objects are more liable to rape and sexually harass women and display more negative attitudes toward female rape victims.

Philosopher Martha Nussbaum identified seven components of sexual objectification: instrumentality, denial of autonomy, inertness, fungibility, violability, ownership, and denial of subjectivity.

In this context, instrumentality refers to when the objectified is used as an instrument to the objectifier's benefit. Denial of autonomy occurs in the form of the objectifier underestimating the objectified and denies their capabilities. In the case of inertness, the objectified is treated as if they are lazy and indolent. Fungibility brands the objectified to be easily replaceable. Volability is when the objectifier does not respect the objectified person's personal space or boundaries. Ownership is when the objectified is seen as another person's property. Lastly, the denial of subjectivity is a lack of sympathy for the objectified, or the dismissal of the notion that the objectified has feelings. These seven components cause the objectifier to view the objectified in a disrespectful way, therefore treating them so.

History

The term dehumanization first appeared in English in the early 19th century, initially referring to changes in physical appearance, but it soon broadened to describe forms of social and moral degradation. His arguments were later invoked to justify the dehumanization of Native Americans during the Spanish conquest and colonization. Dehumanization became a powerful tool during the age of colonialism, enabling imperial powers to justify the colonization, enslavement, and extermination of subjugated peoples.

Throughout history, societies have engaged in and institutionalized this denial of humanity to enable mass oppression, exploitation, and killing. David Livingstone Smith, director and founder of The Human Nature Project at the University of New England, argues that historically, human beings have been dehumanizing one another for thousands of years. In his work "The Paradoxes of Dehumanization", Smith proposes that dehumanization simultaneously regards people as human and subhuman. This paradox comes to light, as Smith identifies, because the reason people are dehumanized is so their human attributes can be taken advantage of.

Modern scholarly interest in dehumanization intensified after World War II, especially in response to the Holocaust, with influential contributions from thinkers such as Hannah Arendt. Africans were portrayed as biologically suited for enslavement and were denied the qualities considered essential to full humanity. This logic was grounded in binary oppositions, especially the division between the "civilized" and the "savage", in which enslaved peoples were depicted as savages lacking rationality, culture, and moral agency.]]

Native Americans were dehumanized as "merciless Indian savages" in the United States Declaration of Independence. Two sculptures reflecting this view of the Natives were commissioned by the U.S. government and stood outside the U.S. Capitol from 1844 to 1958: The Discovery of America which depicted a triumphant Columbus and a "female savage", according to the Pennsylvania senator James Buchanan who proposed the sculpture, and The Rescue whose sculptor Horatio Greenough wrote that it was "to convey the idea of the triumph of the whites over the savage tribes". Following the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890, author L. Frank Baum wrote:<blockquote>The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past. </blockquote>In Martin Luther King Jr.'s book on civil rights, Why We Can't Wait, he wrote:

<blockquote>Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.</blockquote>

King was an active supporter of the Native American rights movement, which he drew parallels with his own leadership of the civil rights movement.

Nazi Germany

Dehumanization reached one of its most extreme expressions under Nazi Germany, where it was systematically employed to justify and implement the persecution and extermination of various groups, including Jews, Romani and Sinti people, people with disabilities, political dissidents, and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Jews were frequently portrayed through animalistic metaphors, including comparisons to vermin, and framed as biologically impure threats to racial purity. These dehumanizing narratives facilitated the systematic extermination of 6,000,000 Jews during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis. In protracted conflicts characterised by high levels of insecurity and entrenched group identities, boundaries between in-groups and out-groups often become more rigid, which reinforces psychological separation and facilitates dehumanizing attitudes. Dehumanization has been identified as a central mechanism in sustaining violence in protracted conflicts, which reinforces collective victimhood identities, legitimizes hostility and perpetuates cycles of violence and retaliation.

Empirical research has found that both Palestinian and Jewish Israeli participants who expressed dehumanizing views of the other group were more likely to support retributive forms of justice and violent measures, as opposed to restorative or conciliatory approaches. Dehumanization contributes to the justification of exclusionary and violent policies, with studies linking dehumanizing attitudes to public support for measures such as population transfers amongst segments of the Israeli population.

During the 2014 Gaza War, studies found high and comparable levels of blatant dehumanization among both Israeli and Palestinian participants. a common measure of dehumanizing attitudes, found that, on average, both sides rated each other closer to an animal than a fully evolved human when shown a March of Progress image. On the scale with "0 corresponding to the left side of the image (i.e., quadrupedal human ancestor), and 100 corresponding to the right side of the image ('full' modern-day human)" Israelis on average rated Palestinians 39.81 points lower than their own group and Palestinians on average rated Israelis 37.03 points lower than their own group. Political orientation has also been shown to influence levels of dehumanization, with research indicating that right-wing Israelis are more likely to dehumanize Palestinians than left-wing Israelis.

Dehumanization in Palestinian discourse manifests through several primary characteristics:

**Use of Animalistic and Medical Imagery:** In religious sermons (primarily from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but occasionally on official Palestinian Authority platforms), expressions comparing Jews and Israelis to "apes and pigs" or describing Israel as a "cancer" or "germ" that must be eradicated are utilized. These images are designed to evoke feelings of disgust and physical revulsion, distancing the subject from the human collective.
**Denial of Civilian Status and Innocence:** A prominent narrative across social media and political statements asserts that Israeli society is entirely a "military" or "colonialist" society, meaning there are no innocent civilians. This perspective strips away the individual human dimension of women, children, and the elderly, framing them as legitimate targets.
**Portrayal as Monsters and Absolute Evil:** Cartoons, songs, and content in the Palestinian education system and media frequently portray IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians as sadistic "killing machines" driven solely by bloodlust, sometimes utilizing motifs that border on historical antisemitic blood libels (such as depicting Israelis drinking the blood of Palestinian children).

Scholars note that while the official Palestinian Authority exhibits fluctuations in the intensity of such rhetoric depending on the political climate, within political Islamist circles and the Gaza Strip under Hamas rule, this dehumanization is institutionalized and accompanied by a radical religious ideology that entirely denies the other side's right to exist.

Dehumanizing zoomorphisms are found in both Israeli discourse and Palestinian discourse. During South Africa's submission to the ICJ that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinians, the president of the ICJ cited Yoav Gallant for using the phrase "human animals" in reference to Palestinians. On the Palestinian side, dehumanization has also been linked to support for violence. Specifically, individuals associate secondary emotions (which are seen as uniquely human) more with the in-group than with the out-group. Primary emotions (those experienced by all sentient beings, whether human or other animals) are found to be more associated with the out-group. Often, one cannot do serious injury to another without first dehumanizing him or her in one's mind (as a form of rationalization). Military training is, among other things, systematic desensitization and dehumanization of the enemy, and military personnel may find it psychologically necessary to refer to the enemy as an animal or other non-human beings. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has shown that without such desensitization it would be difficult, if not impossible, for one human to kill another human, even in combat or under threat to their own lives.

thumb|left|upright|[[Ota Benga, a human exhibit in Bronx Zoo, 1906]]

According to Daniel Bar-Tal, delegitimization is the "categorization of groups into extreme negative social categories which are excluded from human groups that are considered as acting within the limits of acceptable norms and values".

Dehumanized perception occurs when a subject experiences low frequencies of activation within their social cognition neural network. This includes areas of neural networking such as the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). A 2001 study by psychologists Chris and Uta Frith suggests that the criticality of social interaction within a neural network has tendencies for subjects to dehumanize those seen as disgust-inducing, leading to social disengagement. Tasks involving social cognition typically activate the neural network responsible for subjective projections of disgust-inducing perceptions and patterns of dehumanization. "Besides manipulations of target persons, manipulations of social goals validate this prediction: Inferring preference, a mental-state inference, significantly increases mPFC and STS activity to these otherwise dehumanized targets." A 2007 study by Harris, McClure, van den Bos, Cohen, and Fiske suggests that dehumanization is associated with decreased neural activity towards the projected target, specifically in the low medial prefrontal cortex, indicating impaired or lessened social perception.

While social distance from the out-group target is a necessary condition for dehumanization, some research suggests that this alone is insufficient. Psychological research has identified high status, power, and social connection as additional factors. Members of high-status groups more often associate humanity with the in-group than the out-group, while members of low-status groups exhibit no differences in associations with humanity. Thus, having a high status makes one more likely to dehumanize others. Low-status groups are more associated with human nature traits (e.g., warmth, emotionalism) than uniquely human characteristics, implying that they are closer to animals than humans because these traits are typical of humans but can be seen in other species. In addition, another line of work found that individuals in a position of power were more likely to objectify their subordinates, treating them as a means to one's end rather than focusing on their essentially human qualities. Finally, social connection—thinking about a close other or being in the actual presence of a close other—enables dehumanization by reducing the attribution of human mental states, increasing support for treating targets like animals, and increasing willingness to endorse harsh interrogation tactics. This is counterintuitive because social connection has documented personal health and well-being benefits but appears to impair intergroup relations.

Neuroimaging studies have discovered that the medial prefrontal cortex—a brain region distinctively involved in attributing mental states to others—shows diminished activation to extremely dehumanized targets (i.e., those rated, according to the stereotype content model, as low-warmth and low-competence, such as drug addicts or unhoused people).

Race and ethnicity

thumb|upright|American propaganda poster from World War II featuring a Japanese soldier depicted as a rat

Racist dehumanization entails that groups and individuals are understood as less than fully human by virtue of their race.

Dehumanization often occurs as a result of intergroup conflict. Ethnic and racial others are often represented as animals in popular culture and scholarship. There is evidence that this representation persists in the American context with African Americans implicitly associated with apes. To the extent that an individual has this dehumanizing implicit association, they are more likely to support violence against African Americans (e.g., jury decisions to execute defendants). Historically, dehumanization is frequently connected to genocidal conflicts in that ideologies before and during the conflict depict victims as subhuman (e.g., rodents). Immigrants may also be dehumanized in this manner.

thumb|left|1914 Austrian postcard depicting a [[Serb as an ape-like terrorist]]

In 1901, the six Australian colonies assented to federation, creating the modern nation state of Australia and its government. Section 51 (xxvi) excluded Aboriginals from the groups protected by special laws, and section 127 excluded Aboriginals from population counts. The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 categorically denied Aboriginals the right to vote. Indigenous Australians were not allowed the social security benefits (e.g., aged pensions and maternity allowances) which were provided to others. Aboriginals in rural areas were discriminated against and controlled as to where and how they could marry, work, live, and their movements.

In the U.S., African Americans were dehumanized by being classified as non-human primates. A California police officer who was also involved in the Rodney King beating described a dispute between an American Black couple as "something right out of Gorillas in the Mist". Franz Boas and Charles Darwin hypothesized that there might be an evolutionary process among primates. Monkeys and apes were least evolved, then savage and deformed anthropoids, which referred to people of African ancestry, to Caucasians as most developed.

Language

Language has been used as an essential tool in the process of dehumanizing others. Examples of dehumanizing language when referring to a person or group of people may include animal, cockroach, rat, vermin, monster, ape, snake, infestation, parasite, alien, savage, and subhuman. Other examples can include racist, sexist, and other derogatory forms of language. Yoshio Shinozuka, Japanese army medic who performed several vivisections in the facility said, "We called the victims 'logs.' We didn't want to think of them as people. We didn't want to admit that we were taking lives. So we convinced ourselves that what we were doing was like cutting down a tree."

The word "immigrant" is sometimes paired with "illegal", which harbors a profoundly derogatory connotation. Misuse of these terms—they are often used inaccurately—to describe the other, can alter the perception of a group as a whole in a negative way. Ryan Eller, the executive director of the immigrant advocacy group Define American, expressed the problem this way:

A series of language examinations found a direct relation between homophobic epithets and social cognitive distancing towards a group of homosexuals, a form of dehumanization. These epithets (e.g., faggot) were thought to function as dehumanizing labels because they tended to act as markers of deviance. One pair of studies found that subjects were more likely to associate malignant language with homosexuals, and that such language associations increased the physical distancing between the subject and the homosexual. This indicated that the malignant language could encourage dehumanization, cognitive and physical distancing in ways that other forms of malignant language do not. Another study involved a computational linguistic analysis of dehumanizing language regarding LGBTQ individuals and groups in the New York Times from 1986 to 2015. The study used previous psychological research on dehumanization to identify four language categories: (1) negative evaluations of a target group, (2) denial of agency, (3) moral disgust, and (4) likening members of the target group to non-human entities (e.g., machines, animals, vermin). The study revealed that LGBTQ people overall have been increasingly more humanized over time; however, they were found to be humanized less frequently than the New York Time's in-group identifier American.

thumb|Depiction of a slave auction in Ancient Rome. Anyone not a Roman citizen was subject to enslavement and was considered private property.

Property takeover

thumb|The [[Spanish Inquisition would seize the property of those accused of heresy and use the profits to fund the accused's imprisonment, even before trial.]]

Property scholars define dehumanization as "the failure to recognize an individual's or group's humanity." Dehumanization often occurs alongside property confiscation. When a property takeover is coupled with dehumanization, the result is a dignity taking. As recently as 2013, the degradation of a mountain sacred to the Hopi people—by spraying its peak pot with artificial snow made from wastewater—constituted another dignity taking by the U.S. Forest Service. White rioters dehumanized African Americans by attacking, looting, and destroying homes and businesses in Greenwood, a predominantly Black neighborhood known as "Black Wall Street". This constituted a dignity taking. These illegal settlement activities involve systemic settler violence against Palestinians, military orders, and state-sanctioned support. These actions force Palestinians to gradually give up their land and farming activities and gradually choke their sources of dignified income. When harsh conditions lead to bodily injury or death, the property destroyed is the physical body. State media are also capable of carrying out dehumanization campaigns, whether in democracies or dictatorships, which are pervasive enough that the population cannot avoid the dehumanizing memes. The media propaganda portrayed Arabs as a "monolithic evil" in the perception of the unwitting American public.

In science, medicine, and technology

thumb|Jewish twins kept alive in [[Auschwitz for use in Josef Mengele's medical experiments]]

Relatively recent history has seen the relationship between dehumanization and science result in unethical scientific research. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Unit 731, and Nazi human experimentation on Jewish people are three such examples. In the former, African Americans with syphilis were recruited to participate in a study about the course of the disease. Even when treatment and a cure were eventually developed, they were withheld from the African-American participants so that researchers could continue their study. Similarly, Nazi scientists during the Holocaust conducted horrific experiments on Jewish people and Shirō Ishii's Unit 731 also did so to Chinese, Russian, Mongolian, American, and other nationalities held captive. Both were justified in the name of research and progress, which is indicative of the far-reaching effects that the culture of dehumanization had upon this society. When this research came to light, efforts were made to protect future research participants, and currently, institutional review boards exist to safeguard individuals from being exploited by scientists.

In biological terms, dehumanization can be described as an introduced species marginalizing the human species, or an introduced person/process that debases other people inhumanely.

In political science and jurisprudence, the act of dehumanization is the inferential alienation of human rights or denaturalization of natural rights, a definition contingent upon presiding international law rather than social norms limited by human geography. In this context, a specialty within species does not need to constitute global citizenship or its inalienable rights; the human genome inherits both.

In a medical context, some dehumanizing practices have become more acceptable. While the dissection of human cadavers was seen as dehumanizing in the Dark Ages (see history of anatomy), the value of dissections as a training aid is such that they are now more widely accepted. Dehumanization has been associated with modern medicine generally and has explicitly been suggested as a coping mechanism for doctors who work with patients at the end of life. Researchers have identified six potential causes of dehumanization in medicine: deindividuating practices, impaired patient agency, dissimilarity (causes which do not facilitate the delivery of medical treatment), mechanization, empathy reduction, and moral disengagement (which could be argued to facilitate the delivery of medical treatment).

In some US states, legislation requires that a woman view ultrasound images of her fetus before having an abortion. Critics of the law argue that merely seeing an image of the fetus humanizes it and biases women against abortion. Similarly, a recent study showed that subtle humanization of medical patients appears to improve care for these patients. Radiologists evaluating X-rays reported more details to patients and expressed more empathy when a photo of the patient's face accompanied the X-rays. It appears that the inclusion of the photos counteracts the dehumanization of the medical process.

Dehumanization has applications outside traditional social contexts. Anthropomorphism (i.e., perceiving mental and physical capacities that reflect humans in nonhuman entities) is the inverse of dehumanization. Waytz, Epley, and Cacioppo suggest that the inverse of the factors that facilitate dehumanization (e.g., high status, power, and social connection) should promote anthropomorphism. That is, a low status, socially disconnected person without power should be more likely to attribute human qualities to pets or inanimate objects than a high-status, high-power, socially connected person.

Researchers have found that engaging in violent video game play diminishes perceptions of both one's own humanity and the humanity of the players who are targets of the game violence. While the players are dehumanized, the video game characters are often anthropomorphized.

Dehumanization has occurred historically under the pretense of "progress in the name of science". During the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, human zoos exhibited several natives from independent tribes worldwide, most notably a young Congolese man, Ota Benga. Benga's imprisonment was put on display as a public service showcasing "a degraded and degenerate race". After relocating to New York in 1906, public outcry led to the permanent ban and closure of human zoos in the United States.

In philosophy

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard explained his stance of anti-dehumanization in his teachings and interpretations of Christian theology. He wrote in his book Works of Love his understanding to be that "to love one's neighbor means equality… your neighbor is every man… he is your neighbor on the basis of equality with you before God; but this equality absolutely every man has, and he has it absolutely."

In art

Spanish romanticism painter Francisco Goya often depicted subjectivity involving the atrocities of war and brutal violence conveying the process of dehumanization. In the romantic period of painting, martyrdom art was most often a means of deifying the oppressed and tormented, and it was common for Goya to depict evil personalities performing these acts; however, he broke convention by dehumanizing these martyr figures: "...one would not know whom the painting depicts, so determinedly has Goya reduced his subjects from martyrs to meat".