Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence
Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization—the act of perceiving victims as not completely human—increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices w...
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| Format: | Article |
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National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115137 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6085-6519 |
| _version_ | 1826202431769280512 |
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| author | Valdesolo, Piercarlo Graham, Jesse Rai, Tage Shakti |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Valdesolo, Piercarlo Graham, Jesse Rai, Tage Shakti |
| author_sort | Valdesolo, Piercarlo |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization—the act of perceiving victims as not completely human—increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices where victims are harmed to achieve instrumental goals, including sweatshop labor, animal experimentation, and drone strikes that result in civilian casualties, but not practices where harm is perceived as morally righteous, including capital punishment, killing in war, and drone strikes that kill terrorists. In vignette experiments, using dehumanizing compared with humanizing language increased participants’ willingness to harm strangers for money, but not participants’ willingness to harm strangers for their immoral behavior. Participants also spontaneously dehumanized strangers when they imagined harming them for money, but not when they imagined harming them for their immoral behavior. Finally, participants humanized strangers who were low in humanity if they imagined harming them for immoral behavior, but not money, suggesting that morally motivated perpetrators may humanize victims to justify violence against them. Our findings indicate that dehumanization enables violence that perpetrators see as unethical, but instrumentally beneficial. In contrast, dehumanization does not contribute to moral violence because morally motivated perpetrators wish to harm complete human beings who are capable of deserving blame, experiencing suffering, and understanding its meaning. Keywords: moral; violence; dehumanization; instrumental; aggression |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:07:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/115137 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:07:22Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1151372022-09-28T00:19:03Z Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence Valdesolo, Piercarlo Graham, Jesse Rai, Tage Shakti Sloan School of Management Rai, Tage Shakti Across five experiments, we show that dehumanization—the act of perceiving victims as not completely human—increases instrumental, but not moral, violence. In attitude surveys, ascribing reduced capacities for cognitive, experiential, and emotional states to victims predicted support for practices where victims are harmed to achieve instrumental goals, including sweatshop labor, animal experimentation, and drone strikes that result in civilian casualties, but not practices where harm is perceived as morally righteous, including capital punishment, killing in war, and drone strikes that kill terrorists. In vignette experiments, using dehumanizing compared with humanizing language increased participants’ willingness to harm strangers for money, but not participants’ willingness to harm strangers for their immoral behavior. Participants also spontaneously dehumanized strangers when they imagined harming them for money, but not when they imagined harming them for their immoral behavior. Finally, participants humanized strangers who were low in humanity if they imagined harming them for immoral behavior, but not money, suggesting that morally motivated perpetrators may humanize victims to justify violence against them. Our findings indicate that dehumanization enables violence that perpetrators see as unethical, but instrumentally beneficial. In contrast, dehumanization does not contribute to moral violence because morally motivated perpetrators wish to harm complete human beings who are capable of deserving blame, experiencing suffering, and understanding its meaning. Keywords: moral; violence; dehumanization; instrumental; aggression National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 1520031) 2018-05-01T18:04:55Z 2018-05-01T18:04:55Z 2017-07 2017-04 2018-04-13T19:09:45Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0027-8424 1091-6490 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115137 Rai, Tage S. et al. “Dehumanization Increases Instrumental Violence, but Not Moral Violence.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, 32 (July 2017): 8511–8516 © 2017 National Academy of Sciences https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6085-6519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1705238114 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) National Academy of Sciences |
| spellingShingle | Valdesolo, Piercarlo Graham, Jesse Rai, Tage Shakti Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence |
| title | Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence |
| title_full | Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence |
| title_fullStr | Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence |
| title_short | Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence |
| title_sort | dehumanization increases instrumental violence but not moral violence |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/115137 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6085-6519 |
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