Transcending the Self: The Effect of Incidental Elevation on Dehumanization Master Thesis Tiarah Engels University of Amsterdam August 2017 Supervisors Disa A. Sauter
Second Assessor: David Amodio University of Amsterdam Department of Social Psychology
Abstract
Dehumanization – the ubiquitous social bias of perceiving others as less human and, therefore, as less deserving of moral consideration – has adverse effects on human welfare. We propose a novel affective approach for reducing dehumanization; namely, by inducing elevation. Elevation – an emotion felt when witnessing exemplary acts of morality – has been shown to have a favorable impact on human welfare thanks to its moral and self-transcendent properties. Based on these properties and previous research indirectly linking dehumanization to elevation, this study sought to test the prediction that elevation would reduce
dehumanization. To test this prediction, we conducted two online between-subjects
experiments (N = 155, N = 167, respectively) using emotion induction in the form of video clips that induced elevation, amusement, or neutral states. Two different dehumanization outcome measures were used, examining blatant, pictorial dehumanization (Experiments 1 and 2) and trait-based dehumanization (Experiment 2). Our results lend support to the prediction that incidental elevation – relative to general positive affect and neutral affect – reduces dehumanization. Due to its detrimental consequences, finding ways to reduce dehumanization – as proposed in this study – is of great societal relevance.
Transcending the Self: The Effect of Incidental Elevation on Dehumanization Dehumanization
People’s views of others are often based on social biases, that is, judgements of other individuals or groups not based on factual knowledge. Such social biases are widespread and associated with a plethora of negative consequence (e.g., Bar-Tal & Teichman, 2005; Bastian, Denson, & Haslam, 2013; Goff et al., 2008; Keene, 2011; Kteily et al., 2015; Wirtz, Pligt, & Doosje, 2016). One such bias, which occurs pervasively across all levels of society, is dehumanization (see Haslam, 2006 for a review). Dehumanization is a process by which people strip a person or group – to which they do not belong (i.e., outgroup) – of their humanity by denying them human properties. Principally, dehumanization encompasses a view of others as animal-like (i.e., animalistic dehumanization) or object-like (i.e.,
mechanistic dehumanization). What makes dehumanization so dangerous is that it is a mechanism of morally disengaging oneself from others, which can justify and facilitate negative reactions towards this person or group because ethical standards are not perceived to apply to them (Bandura et al., 1996). Negative reactions influenced by dehumanization can range from relatively moderate to extreme: for example, from less helping behavior in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Cuddy, Rock, &Norton, 2007) to the deadly persecution of Jews seen as “rats” and “vermin” during the Second World War.
The effect of emotion on social bias
There are many psychological factors that can either exacerbate or mitigate negatively biased perceptions of outgroup members; one such factor is emotion. Because our social judgments are influenced by our current emotional states (e.g., Dasgupta, DeSteno, & Hunsinger, 2009), there is vast literature on how emotions can increase social biases (e.g., Dasgupta et al., 2009; DeSteno, Dasgupta, Bartlett, & Cajdric, 2004). However, there is a dearth of evidence on how emotion induction might also reduce social biases; this can be
considered quite a pressing shortage due to the aforementioned devastating impact of social biases on human welfare. Incidental emotion has been found to increase dehumanization in a study of disgust: Participants who were induced with incidental disgust dehumanized
outgroup members more than participants who were not disgusted (Buckles & Trapnell, 2013). This finding raises the question whether inducing a different emotion might reduce dehumanization.
The effect of elevation on dehumanization
A candidate emotion for reducing dehumanization is elevation. Elevation is “a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, and compassion” (Haidt, 2000, p. 1). Despite lacking evidence of a direct link between elevation and dehumanization, there are several theoretical reasons and empirical findings suggesting that elevation may reduce dehumanization.
Firstly, elevation is considered a self-transcendent emotion (Shiota et al., 2014). Self-transcendent emotions encourage us to look beyond the self by switching our – often inwardly focused – attention outward (Haidt & Morris, 2009). Further, elevation encourages people to transcend their relied-upon knowledge structures and modes of cognition known as cognitive schemas (Bartlett, 1932; Piaget, 1928). This is because elevation is elicited by moral acts that are so exemplary that they transcend the contents of our cognitive schemas, and a change in these schemas (i.e., accommodation; Piaget, 1928) is required to make sense of the experience (Shiota et al., 2014). Social biases are the result of judging others by means of these cognitive schemas (Devine, 1989; Dovidio & Gaertner, 1991; Klinger & Beall, 1992). Therefore, the property of elevation as encouraging the transcendence of existing knowledge structures implies that a subjective state of elevation may result in a reduction of dehumanization.
Secondly, elevation is also considered a positive moral emotion because it meets the two criteria of (1) being related to human welfare and (2) being elicited by acts of others that
are not directed at the self. Indeed, elevation enhances and restores people’s faith in – and positive views of – humanity (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Aquino et al., 2011). This may counteract dehumanization, which can be seen as relating to negative morality, because it involves negative views of humanity and seeing others as less deserving of moral concern.
Thirdly and related, elevation promotes a more inclusive sense of shared common humanity (e.g., Dovidio et al., 1995; Isen et al., 1992; Johnson & Fredrickson, 2005; Waugh & Fredrickson, 2006), which could prevent the tendency during dehumanization to morally exclude people from humanity. Indeed, the common ingroup identity model (Gaertner et al., 1993) proposes that intergroup relations can become more harmonious through developing a superordinate identity (i.e., a shared or common identity with members of other groups), as this decreases the salience of intergroup boundaries. Previous research has demonstrated that a sense of superordinate identity can reduce dehumanization (Gaunt, 2009; Capozza et al., 2013; Albarello & Rubini, 2012). Superordinate identity has also been linked to elevation, with incidental elevation increasing the perceived overlap between oneself and others (Oliver et al., 2015). This increased self-humanity overlap, in turn, resulted in more favorable
attitudes towards the outgroup. Building on these findings, elevation may reduce dehumanization through the accentuation of a superordinate identity.
Fourthly, elevation also evokes a general concern to become a better, positive instance of humanity (Siegel et al., 2014). This concern is translated into behavioral change, as
evidenced by the many findings showing how elevation enhances prosociality: for example, more donation and volunteering behaviors (Cox, 2010; Perlmutter, 2012; Romani & Grappi, 2014; Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010), more prosocial behavior in organizations such as organizational citizenship behavior (Vianello et al., 2010), and more consumer support of environment-friendly products (Romani, Grappi, & Gapozzi, 2014). This focus during
treat others negatively. Furthermore, indicative from the last-mentioned empirical findings, most research on elevation has focused on its role in increasing moral and prosocial outcomes rather than decreasing antisocial and immoral outcomes. One notable exception is a study by Lai, Haidt, and Nosek (2014), who had participants watch emotion-inducing videos and found that participants who watched the elevation-inducing video had less sexual prejudice towards gay men than participants who watched amusement-inducing videos or videos that did not elicit any particular emotion. This attenuating effect of elevation on sexual prejudice offers a promising prospect for a similar effect of elevation on another form of prejudice:
dehumanization.
Fifthly, those dehumanizing others display a feeling of superiority relative to others (Bar-Tal, 1989). Indeed, prior research suggests that people who have more of a desire to be superior relative to the outgroup dehumanize refugees and other outgroups more than those who have less of this desire (Esses et al., 2008; Hodson & Costello, 2007; Costello & Hodson, 2009). Therefore, a way to reduce dehumanization may be to reduce this desire for
superiority. A study by Freeman, Aquino, and McFerran (2009) suggests that this desire for superiority normally precludes prosocial behavior towards outgroups and that elevation can undo this negative effect. Namely, Freeman et al. (2009) demonstrated how inducing elevation increased the donation-willingness and actual donations of subjectively superior white people (who normally would not donate) to a Black-oriented charity. Building on these findings, elevation may reduce dehumanization through the attenuation of the desire for superiority.
In sum, based on these theoretical reasons and empirical findings indirectly linking elevation to dehumanization, we hypothesized that incidental elevation would reduce dehumanization. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two online between-subjects experiments using emotion induction in the form of video clips that induced elevation,
amusement, or neutral states. Two different dehumanization outcome measures were used, examining blatant, pictorial dehumanization (Experiments 1 and 2) and trait-based
dehumanization (Experiment 2).
Experiment 1
In Experiment 1 we tested whether inducing elevation by means of a video clip with positive moral content would result in Caucasian American participants dehumanizing the outgroup (i.e., a selection of minority groups) less than those who watched control videos. Method
Participants. A power analysis in G*Power with f = 0,25 (Buckels & Trapnell, 2013) and a power of 80% provided us with an indication of a total sample size of at least 159 participants. Participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and were
remunerated for their participation with $2,50. To assess dehumanization, we operationalized our ingroup vs. outgroup contrast by assigning Caucasian Americans as the ingroup and non-Caucasians as the outgroup. Therefore, we pre-specified non-Caucasian races as an exclusion criterion and only considered data coming from Caucasian Americans. After removing 25 non-Caucasian participants, a total of 155 remained (87 male, Mage = 38.6, age range: 19-74 years): 51 in the neutral condition, 52 in the amusement condition, and 52 in the elevation condition. There was no difference between the conditions regarding the distribution of gender c2(4) = 2.46, p = .65, or age, F = 0.53, p = 0.59.
Design and Procedure. Participants completed a survey on Qualtrics. This survey consisted of the following components in a fixed order: (1) informed consent, (2) emotion induction video, (3) control questions, (4) dehumanization measure, (5) manipulation check, (6) External and Internal Motivation to Respond without prejudice questionnaire, (7)
between-subjects design whereby participants were randomly assigned to one of the following three conditions: elevation, amusement, and neutral. The purpose of including an amusement condition (as has been done in previous studies: Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Schnall et al., 2010; Silvers & Haidt, 2008) was to control for general positive affect. Namely, we wanted to ascertain whether the potential effect of elevation was a unique one rather than a general effect of positive affect. The manipulation check was presented after the dehumanization measure to avoid it from interfering with the intensity of the induced emotion while participants completed the dehumanization measure, or to make participants aware of the intended induced emotional state.
Materials. Emotion induction videos – To induce elevation, amusement, and a neutral control state, we used videos that have successfully induced these target states in previous studies (e.g., Lai, Haidt, & Nosek, 2014; Piper, Saslow, & Saturn, 2015). The elevation video depicted a story about a girl who got injured while playing a softball competition, and her opponents carried her across all bases to help her finish her homerun. The amusement video was a clip from a stand-up comedy show featuring Jerry Seinfeld. The neutral control video was taken from the How It’s Made TV program, and consisted of a sequence on how flutes are made. All the videos were approximately 5 minutes long and included only Caucasian Americans.
Dehumanization – We chose to limit our study to animalistic, but not mechanistic, dehumanization, because this type of dehumanization is most relevant to intergroup contexts (Haslam, 2006). We assessed dehumanization with the Ascent of Man scale (Kteily et al., 2015; see Figure 1). Participants rated how evolved they considered the average member of each of the following groups to be: Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, and Muslims (presented in randomized order), on four separate scales from 0 (minimum) to 100 (maximum).
Figure 1. The Ascent of Man Scale (Kteily et al., 2015).
Manipulation check – To check whether the emotion inductions were successful in inducing the intended emotions, we used a 12-item rating scale. Participants responded by rating on 9-point scales (1 = didn’t feel at all, 9 = felt very strongly) to what extent they felt “moved”, “uplifted”, “optimistic”, “warm feeling in chest”, “want to help others”, and “want to become a better person”, after watching the video. These six items measure the cognitive appraisals and feelings associated with elevation (Haidt, 2003), and they have been found to be successful in distinguishing elevation from general positive affect (Schnall et al., 2010). Six other items pertained to general positive affect: “happy”, “amused”, “entertained”, “joyful”, “cheerful”, “elated”.
Control variables – We incorporated four variables in our survey to be included in our analyses as control variables. Two of these control questions assessed how much the
participants liked the video they had seen, and how engaging they thought the video was. The final control variables were participants’ internal (IM) and external motivation (EM) to
respond without prejudice, as measured by the scales constructed by Plant and Devine (1998; IM 𝛼 = .83, EM 𝛼 = .78). Each of these two scales consisted of five items with response options ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree), such that the higher the score, the more internally or externally motivated a person is to respond without prejudice. Sample items include “Because of my personal values, I believe that using stereotypes about Black people is wrong.” for internal motivation and “I try to hide any negative thoughts about Black people in order to avoid negative reactions from others.” for external motivation. Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. We conducted manipulation check analyses to ensure that the emotion induction videos successfully induced the intended emotions. Presented in Figure 2 are the results for the emotion manipulations. The average of the six elevation items (i.e., overall elevation score) was submitted to a one-way ANOVA comparing the three between-subjects emotion induction conditions. The results revealed significant differences between conditions, F(2, 152) = 43.11, p < 0.001, hp2 = 0.362. A Tukey post-hoc test revealed that participants in the elevation condition felt considerably more elevation (M = 7.06, SD = 1.98) than the participants in the amusement condition (M = 4.54, SD = 2.14), p < 0.001, and the neutral condition (M = 3.28, SD = 2.19), p < 0.001. Against our expectation the amusement and the neutral conditions also differed in overall elevation, p < 0.01.
Submitting the general positive affect score (i.e., the average over the six positive affect items) to a one-way ANOVA also revealed significant differences between conditions, F(2, 152) = 18.32, p < 0.001, hp2 = 0.194. As expected, the amusement condition (M = 6.31, SD = 2.02) differed significantly from the neutral condition in general positive affect, p < 0.001, but the elevation (M = 6.29, SD = 1.95) and the amusement condition (M = 6.31, SD = 2.02) did not differ, p = .998. The latter finding rules out the possibility that the effects of elevation on dehumanization are due to mere positive affect. Based on these results of our
manipulation checks we can conclude that the emotion induction videos successfully induced the intended emotions.
(A) (B)
Figure 2. Mean rating scores for extent of elevation (A) and positive affect (B) felt per condition. The error bars represent the standard error of the mean.
Dehumanization. To assess dehumanization, we computed a relative overall dehumanization score (i.e., dehumanization of the outgroup vs. dehumanization of the
ingroup) by subtracting the mean of all outgroup Ascent of Man ratings from the ingroup (i.e., Caucasian Americans) Ascent of Man ratings. Presented in Figure 3 are the mean
dehumanization scores per condition. The means were in the predicted directions, with the elevation condition scoring lower (M = 6.72, SD = 12.92, CI [3.12, 10.31]) than the neutral condition (M = 11.25, SD = 21.33, CI [5.26, 17.25]) and the amusement condition (M = 10.39, SD = 19.30, CI [5.02, 15.76]). However, a one-way ANOVA revealed that these differences between conditions were not significant, F(2, 152) = 0.91, p = .406, d = 0.2. Controlling for the pre-specified control variables did not influence these results (EM, F(2, 151) = 0.70, p =
0 2 4 6
Neutral Amusement Elevation
Condition Ele vation 0 2 4 6
Neutral Amusement Elevation
Condition
P
ositiv
e aff
0.50; IM, F(2, 151) = 0.55, p = 0.58; liking the video, F(2, 151) = 1.73, p = 0.18; and engagement in video, F(2, 151) = 0.79, p = 0.45). The descriptive statistics for the control variables can be found in Appendix A.
Figure 3. Mean dehumanization scores per condition based on the Ascent of Man scale. The error bars represent the standard error of the mean.
This lack of statistical significance in the face of a considerable mean difference in the predicted direction was likely due to lack of statistical power in combination with a small effect size; A post-hoc analysis in G* Power estimated a power of 0.2. There was large variability in the dehumanization scores (see Table 1). Population variance, effect size, and statistical power are intricately connected, but the influence of population variance is commonly overlooked (Zimmerman, Williams, & Zumbo, 1993). Effect size can be
considered a composite of the influence of population variance and the alternative hypothesis (Cohen, 1988), such that high population variance leads to a reduction in effect size. A reduction in effect size, in turn, reduces statistical power. Therefore, since our alternative
0 5 10
Neutral Amusement Elevation
Condition
hypothesis, the effect size and the statistical power were held constant during the a priori power analysis, we believe that our a posteriori lack of power is a result of population variance. The large variance in responses could be a result of the vast range of responses for The Ascent of Man scale (i.e., 101). Given that the reliability of measurement is dependent on the specific measure used, we considered that assessing dehumanization with a more
constrained scale may reduce the variance, making the effect size estimate larger and more detectable thanks to increased power. As such, in our second experiment, we decided to use a different measure of dehumanization with a narrower scope of response options in an attempt to reduce variability. Furthermore, the Ascent of Man scale is considered to measure blatant dehumanization, whereas in our second experiment we decided on a more common and subtle measure of dehumanization (see Haslam, 2014, for a complete overview of the orthogonal dimensions of dehumanization measures).
Experiment 2
In Experiment 2, we further sought to test whether incidental elevation affects dehumanization. The results of the first experiment showed that in numerical terms,
participants who felt elevation dehumanized outgroup members less than those who did not feel elevation, but this pattern of results was not statistically significant. In Experiment 2, we assessed the effect of incidental elevation on dehumanization using a measure with more constrained response options (i.e., a 7-alternative forced-choice scale).
Method
Participants. Participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and were remunerated with $2.00 for their participation. From an initial total of 221 participants, 54 were removed due to not being Caucasian Americans. A total of 167 participants (96 male Mage = 37.6, age range: 19-73 years) remained: 54 in the neutral condition, 58 in the
amusement condition, and 55 in the elevation condition. There was no difference between the conditions regarding the distribution of gender, c2(2) = 2.14, p = .344, or age, F(2, 164) = 1.06, p = 0.348.
Design and procedure. The methodology used in Experiment 2 was identical to that of experiment 1, except for the dehumanization measure used. Specifically, we employed an additional measure of dehumanization – one created by Bastian and colleagues (2013) and extended by Kteily et al. (2015, 2016).
Materials. Dehumanization trait-based measure – Participants rated on a scale (𝛼 = .96) from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely so) to what extent a total of 15 animalistic traits describe Caucasian Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, and Muslims. The traits were: “backward,” “savage,” “lacking morals,” “cold-hearted,” “scientifically/technologically advanced,” “primitive,” “aggressive,” “barbaric,” “refined” (reverse-scored), “rational” (reverse-scored), “capable of self-control” (reverse-scored), “mature” (reverse-scored),
“cultured” (reverse-scored), “logical” (reverse-scored), “responsible” (reverse-scored). Higher scores on this measure indicate more dehumanization.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. Similar to the results of Experiment 1, the manipulation of emotion was successful. There was a significant difference between conditions in overall elevation score, F(2, 164) = 47.80, p < .001, hp2 = 0.368. Importantly, a Tukey post-hoc test revealed that the elevation felt after watching the video was statistically significantly higher for the elevation condition (M = 6.90, SD = 2.01) compared to the amusement condition (M = 3.87, SD = 1.97), p < 0.001, and the neutral condition (M = 3.32, SD = 2.24), p < 0.001. The amusement and the neutral conditions did not differ in elevation, p = 0.481.
There was also a significant difference between conditions in overall positive affect score, F(2, 164) = 12.18, p < .001, hp2 = 0.129. A Tukey’s post-hoc test revealed that the positive
affect felt after watching the video was statistically significantly higher for the amusement condition (M = 5.72, SD = 2.06) compared to the neutral condition (M = 4.31, SD = 2.32), p < 0.01. As expected, there was no difference in positive affect between the amusement
condition and the elevation condition (M = 6.22, SD = 1.86), p = .413.
Dehumanization. Presented in Figure 4 are the mean dehumanization scores per condition as assessed with the trait-based measure. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of emotion condition on dehumanization. This analysis revealed a significant difference between conditions, F(2, 164) = 3.61, p < 0.05, d = 0.5. Tukey’s post hoc analysis revealed that, as predicted, participants in the elevation condition (M = 3.27, SD = 0.94) dehumanized significantly less than participants in the amusement condition (M = 3.70, SD = 0.82), p < 0.05. However, contrary to our expectations, the neutral condition (M = 3.62, SD = 0.89) and the elevation condition did not differ, p = 0.11.
Figure 4. Mean dehumanization scores of the trait-based measure. The error bars represent the standard error of the mean.
0 1 2 3
Neutral Amusement Elevation
Condition
We also assessed dehumanization with the Ascent of Man – presented in Table 1 are the mean dehumanization scores per condition for this measure. Again, we observed no statistically significant difference between conditions, F(2, 164) = 0.308, p = .74, d = 0.1. Controlling for the pre-specified control variables did not influence these results (EM, F(2, 163) = 0.26, p = 0.78; IM, F(2, 163) = 1.46, p = 0.24; liking the video, F(2, 151) = 0.42, p = 0.66; and engagement in video, F(2, 163) = 0.30, p = 0.74). The descriptive statistics for the control variables can be found in Appendix B.
Table 1
Descriptive statistics of the Ascent of Man measure.
95% Confidence Interval
Condition Mean SD Lower Bound Upper Bound
Neutral 10.90 18.18 5.94 15.86
Amusement 13.84 23.49 7.67 20.02
Elevation 11.93 18.25 6.99 16.86
Using the trait-based measure of dehumanization yielded support for the prediction that incidental elevation would reduce dehumanization. These results not only shed light on the positive role of elevation in reducing dehumanization but also on the consideration that needs to be taken into measuring dehumanization. The trait-based measure resulted in a larger effect size and greater statistical power than the Ascent of Man measure. Firstly, the effect size increased considerably – from a ‘small’ value of d = 0.1 for the Ascent of Man measure to a ‘medium’ value of d = 0.5 for the trait-based measure (Cohen, 1988). The latter effect size is consistent with the effect size of f = 0,25 (Buckels & Trapnell, 2013) on which we based our a priori power analysis. Secondly, the power increased from 0.2 to 0.8, likely due to
the reduction in the population variance. Namely, for the trait-based measure, the coefficient of variation for the elevation condition was only 0.29 compared to 1.53 for the Ascent of Man scale. Thus, it seems that incidental elevation does reduce dehumanization, but that this effect depends on the measure used to measure dehumanization.
General Discussion
In previous studies, elevation has been shown to serve a vital social function by increasing prosocial outcomes, including restoring faith in humanity and increasing prosociality. In the present study, we sought to examine a complementary relationship, namely, whether elevation can decrease antisocial outcomes. Specifically, we sought to examine the relationship between incidental elevation and social bias in the form of
dehumanization. As predicted, the participants in the elevation condition reported lower levels of dehumanization of the outgroup than the participants in the positive control condition. These results are in line with the only other study that investigated the effect of elevation on negative social bias (or prejudice), which demonstrated that elevation can reduce sexual prejudice against gay men (Lai et al., 2014). As such, our results extent the support for the social function of elevation from the novel perspective of reducing negative social outcomes. However, the current results should be interpreted with caution because they seem to depend on the specific measure used to measure dehumanization. Specifically, we did not find a statistically significant effect when using the Ascent of Man scale measuring blatant dehumanization, but we did find an effect with the trait-based dehumanization scale in
Experiment 2. These preliminary results are promising, but more research needs to be done to investigate the robustness of this effect across multiple measures. On account that this is the second study ever done on how elevation can reduce negative social bias, several questions, alternative explanations, and possible implications follow.
Due to its detrimental consequences, its pervasiveness across society, and its
persistence across history (Haslam, 2006), finding ways to reduce dehumanization is of great societal relevance. As such, this new knowledge about the potential attenuating effect of elevation on dehumanization could in the longer term contribute to interventions aimed at reducing and preventing dehumanization. To give an example, (social) media has been shown to promote the dehumanization of outgroup members such as immigrants and refugees (Esses, Medianu & Lawson, 2013; Henry & Tator, 2002), by portraying immigrants as spreaders of infectious diseases, like vermin (Lawson & Esses, 2008). However, social media could also serve as a potential platform to reduce dehumanization by inducing elevation. Our study demonstrated that simply watching an elevation inducing video can already affect social biases, and people watch videos on social media every day (e.g., 500 Million people watch videos on Facebook on a daily basis; Video Trends, 2016). Websites such as upworthy.com already share these types elevation inducing videos to make people feel more connected to others (Koechley, 2016). Oliver et al. (2015) found that media induced elevation increased people’s self-humanity overlap, which in turn increased their feeling of connectedness with several different outgroups. Given that an increased sense of superordinate identity reduces dehumanization (Gaunt, 2009; Capozza et al., 2012; Albarello & Rubini, 2012), it could be of interest to organizations that are concerned with combatting and preventing intergroup
conflict or other negative outcomes of dehumanization to consider this as a potential way of reducing dehumanization.
Another possible application concerns the property of elevation that allows for transcendence of the robust cognitive schemas underlying social biases. Dehumanization has proven to be a very persistent phenomenon. Take for example the common historical
depictions of Black people as being ape-like stemming from the colonial era (Lebow, 1976) but still persistent in today’s society; such as in court rooms and the media (Goff et al., 2008).
A well-evidenced reason for the tenaciousness of social bias is the underlying cognitive schemas from which they arise. Having been activated frequently throughout our lives, these schemas are robust and require a lot of effort to modify (Devine, 1989). According to Devine and colleagues who have done considerable research on social bias, reducing social bias requires motivation to change (Devine & Monteith, 1993; Plant & Devine, 2009). They further argue that this motivation requires (1) awareness and (2) concern about having these biases. These requirements are not always easily met because social biases often occur without explicit knowledge or endorsement (e.g., Devine, 1989; Devine et al., 2012). However, reducing dehumanization through elevation does not seem to depend on this willingness to change because it has been demonstrated (through our study) to work outside of people’s awareness. Furthermore, our results indicate that the reduction in dehumanization was not driven by the motivation to respond without prejudice because the conditions did not differ in their ratings on the IMS and EMS (see appendices A and B). As such, our findings are compatible with elevation eliciting a transcendence of our cognitive schemas (Shiota et al., 2014) without conscious effort. This property of elevation allows for an efficient and easily applicable contribution to interventions against dehumanization.
Interestingly, elevation has been claimed to be the theoretical and functional opposite of disgust (Haidt, 2003). Specifically, disgust is seen as an emotional response to possible negative contagion, whereas elevation as an emotional response to possible positive contagion. Several studies established a facilitating role for disgust in dehumanization (Buckles & Trapnell, 2013; Dalsklev & Rønningsdalen Kunst, 2015; Harris & Fiske, 2006; Hodson & Costello, 2007). If the alleged disgust-opposing functionality of elevation were true, an antagonistic mitigating role for elevation in dehumanization can be expected – the results of the present study are in accordance with this expectation. However, our study provides no direct evidence to support the alleged disgust-opposing functionality of elevation
but it does encourage further research on this topic. Given how much is known about disgust (e.g., Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley, 2009; Schaller & Park, 2011; Tyber, Lieberman, &
Griskevicius, 2009), future research that contrasts elevation with disgust may provide us with a better understanding of elevation and its relatively understudied associations with social bias and outcomes.
Besides the already noted methodological limitation of low statistical power in
Experiment 1 of the present study, there are some additional limitations worth mentioning that pertain to both of the current experiments. Firstly, the current findings do not allow us to disentangle whether the effect is driven specifically by subjective feelings of elevation. Namely, our results are also compatible with an explanation based on the reduction of
dehumanization being driven by particular functional features of elevation that are capable of altering people’s social biases. What these features are exactly is yet to be revealed in future research. As discussed in the introduction, elevation promotes a sense of common humanity (Oliver et al., 2015) and a mitigation of the desire for ingroup superiority (Freeman, Aquino, & McFerran, 2009). Since both of these variables have been linked to a reduction in
dehumanization, two candidate functional features could be hypothesized: an increased sense of common identity, and a decreased desire for group superiority. Another alternative
explanation for our findings could be that seeing an exemplary act of morality increases the salience of (the virtues of) humanity. Past research demonstrates how salience of the human category can influence the perception of the outgroup (Morton & Postmes, 2011; Wohl, Branscombe, & Klar, 2006). Future research could incorporate measures of these constructs and conduct mediation analyses to test hypotheses about the mechanisms of the effect of elevation on dehumanization.
Secondly, we were interested in dehumanization in general rather than of an individual outgroup. Therefore, we considered the overall dehumanization of a selection of commonly
dehumanized ethnic groups by Caucasian Americans (i.e., African American, Muslims, and Mexicans). Consequently, our conclusions about the effect of elevation on dehumanization may not generalize to populations beyond Caucasian Americans. Conceivably, people of different races and cultures have different outgroups, and the extent and type of
dehumanization (e.g., animalistic vs. mechanistic) may depend on the perceived
characteristics of the outgroup (see Kteily et al., 2015). The extent and characteristics of how minority members dehumanize other outgroups may differ in important ways from those of Caucasian Americans; these differences need to be further explored.
On a final note, precisely those people that could do with exemplar acts of morality (i.e., the elicitor of elevation) directed at them the most – such as low-status people – are also those that are dehumanized the most (Harris & Fiske, 2006). This makes sense when you consider that nonhumans do not warrant the moral and humane treatment prescribed within our basic human rights. Elevation could help solve this unfortunate contradiction by killing two birds with one stone – that is, by making people dehumanize low-status people less and by motivating people to act altruistically and charitably towards these people in need. The latter has been demonstrated on numerous occasions (e.g., Schnall et al., 2010) and the former by the results of the present study. Eliminating peoples’ dehumanizing perceptions of
outgroup members will make them see others for what they fundamentally are (i.e., humans) and deem them as deserving of moral treatment. The latter together with the positive effects of elevation discussed throughout this paper highlight the importance of establishing
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Appendix A
Descriptive statistics of the control variables in Experiment 1.
95% Confidence Interval Mean SD Lower Bound Upper Bound EM Condition Neutral 4.38 2.52 3.67 5.09 Amusement 4.43 2.50 3.74 5.13 Elevation 4.07 2.34 3.42 4.73 IM Condition Neutral 6.35 1.51 5.92 6.77 Amusement 6.43 1.37 6.05 6.81 Elevation 6.60 1.21 6.27 6.94 Liking Video Condition Neutral 63.31 26.81 55.77 70.85 Amusement 76.52 25.16 69.52 83.52 Elevation 83.37 24.45 76.56 90.17 Engagement in Video Condition Neutral 42.86 29.74 34.50 51.23 Amusement 37.75 32.64 28.66 46.84 Elevation 33.63 38.89 22.81 44.46
Appendix B Descriptive statistics of the control variables in Experiment 2. 95% Confidence Interval Mean SD Lower Bound Upper Bound EM Condition Neutral 4.06 2.53 3.37 4.75 Amusement 4.44 2.41 3.81 5.07 Elevation 3.96 2.35 3.32 4.60 IM Condition Neutral 5.69 1.61 5.25 6.13 Amusement 6.13 1.45 5.75 6.51 Elevation 6.51 1.20 6.18 6.83 Liking Video Condition Neutral 64.72 28.65 56.90 72.54 Amusement 72.57 25.65 65.83 79.31 Elevation 86.15 18.23 81.22 91.07 Engagement in Video Condition Neutral 47.91 29.71 39.80 56.02 Amusement 45.28 33.87 36.37 54.18 Elevation 41.45 40.21 30.58 52.33
