Causes and Consequences of Dehumanisation - Essay Example

?Running Head: Dehumanisation Dehumanisation [Institute’s Dehumanisation Introduction According to its definition, “Dehumanisation refers to the psychological process of depriving the subject from human attributes and qualities such as individuality, identity, creativity, human rights, personal dignity, compassion, sensitivity and others and considering him or her as subhuman or an inferior race” (Cortes, Demoulin, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, & Leyens, pp. 250-252, 2005). Experts believe that there are two kinds of emotions, primary and secondary. Primary emotions are pleasure, anger, fear, attraction and others and guilt, love, hope, intelligence, humiliation and others are included in the category of secondary emotions. Humans and animals both share primary emotions whereas, when it comes to secondary emotions, it remains restricted to humans thus making it the human essence. Therefore, the target in dehumanisation remains on depriving the enemies of “secondary emotions” (Goldenberg, Heflick, Vaes, Motyl & Greenberg, pp. 768-770, 2009). The process may be directed towards one person but history shows that usually entire groups, societies, communities, ethnicities, nationalities, people from specific sexual orientations (homosexuals), and religions have remained subject to dehumanisation. It is highly likely that authorities and governments would present and promote this agenda based on their political, economic, and power motives rather than basing them on rational and logical arguments. In the past, governments, tribes, and societies have won wars with successful dehumanisation of their enemies in the eyes of their military and general public (Delgado, Rodriguez-Perez, Vaes, Leyens & Betancor, pp. 703-705, 2009). Throughout the history, dictators have used their resources to dehumanize their enemies, whether from the inside or the outside, in order to protect their authority. Nevertheless, millions of people have lost their lives when they were considered by others as mere “things or objects” which were supposed to be disposed off. The Holocaust, Rwanda Genocide, The Red Scare, Racism, Afghan War, War on Terror, Second World War and others are examples where governments and authorities used dehumanisation to motivate their soldiers for the brutal and ruthless killings of the enemies. The phrase “Life unworthy of life”, used by Nazis to degrade and deprive Jews and others from human rights so that they do not face any ethical, moral or legal barriers in torturing and killing those people, is the best example of how dehumanisation works (Paladino, Leyens, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Gaunt, & Demoulin, pp. 106-109, 2002). This paper is an attempt to explore, investigate, and critically analyze the causes of dehumanisation or infrahumanisation mostly in the light of experimental psychological studies. Discussion Psychology has played its part in describing the process of dehumanization. The process starts with typical stereotyping and the unmet need of forming a strong group identity. Communication between the both parities becomes nonexistent or problematic and with the passage of time, which leads to misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the enemy’s actions. People start associating evil traits and motives with the actions of the enemies thus allowing hatred to increase (Gaunt, Leyens, & Demoulin, pp. 512, 2002; Mayenin, pp. 24-27, 2007). Paulo Freire has shed some light on the axiological consequences of dehumanization. Freire notes that once the oppressors get even the slightest hint of power or liberation from the torture, they must not try to become the oppressors since two wrongs do not make a right. However, he believes that this is most likely outcome as well. Freire writes, “Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both (Mayenin, pp. 24-27, 2007). He also believes that dehumanization is not the result of the fate or destiny but it is always the result of an unjust order, which ends up filling violence in the oppressors, who in turn become dehumanised in the true sense as well. Therefore, dehumanisation in itself is a vicious cycle, where oppressed when get a chance to become the oppressors would go dehumanise their former oppressors and make them into oppressed. Thus, towards the end of the day, all the parties end up losing the essential human characteristic of treating others with respect and dignity (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli & Regalia, pp. 125-128, 2001). According to the classical explanation of Ernest Renan, nations are formulated when people share similarities in terms of what they are and what they tend to forget. Without any doubts, nations share a glorious past, which becomes the foundation of their nationhood but at the same time, their foundation of nationhood also depends upon their collective capability to forget events, which could shake up their unity and pride. Such collective forgetting also helps nations to formulate a sense of collective identity and loyalty. More importantly, the point here is that when people from the in-group are reminded of the past wrong doings and dehumanisation of others, they are highly likely to continue the process of dehumanisation in order to escape from the possible guilt and maintain their sense of collective identity. Therefore, generations after generations, the process continues like a never-ending cycle (Cortes, Demoulin, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, & Leyens, pp. 250-252, 2005). There is empirical evidence, which links dehumanisation with deindividuation and believes that deindividuation has been the prerequisite for most of the dehumanisation that has taken place over the past centuries (Rogers, pp. 247-248, 2006). Deindividuation is a concept studied by social psychologists and sociologists who describe it as a process with which people find them in a state of lowered self-identity and self-consciousness, which ends up diminishing their sense of moral and ethical obligation (Paladino, Leyens, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Gaunt, & Demoulin, pp. 106-109, 2002). Deindividuation is most likely to occur when people become a part of large groups and when they feel that they have become anonymous. Group norms and conformance with group becomes more important than one’s own identity and rational thinking (Waytz, Nicholas, & Cacioppo, pp. 60-61, 2010; Rogers, pp. 247-248, 2006). Therefore, people go on to follow blindly the leader’s orders or anything the group is doing collectively with minimal sense of guilt and responsibility. One a person loses his identity, guilt, and sense of responsibility; it is highly likely that he or she would end up in the process of dehumanisation of the enemies for the sake for the group (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 1206-1210, 2002). It does appear that with large crowds people do become more violent, irrational, and antisocial. Army soldiers tend to wear the similar uniforms with huge crowds so that they could lose their own sense of identity and follow the group or the leader (Leyens, Demoulin, Vaes, Gaunt & Paladino, pp. 142-147, 2007). However, the argument here is that with deindividuation, people do not replace their self-identity with collective identity but they lose every possible bit of their control over themselves. This may lead to inner fighting and self-destruction as well (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli & Regalia, pp. 125-128, 2001). There are also other reasons to believe that membership of large groups and dehumanisation, are related to each other. The flip side of dehumanisation is anthropomorphism where people associate human like qualities to non-human entities, for example, naming of cars, talking to plants, dressing up cats and dogs, and others (Castelli, Vanzetto, Sherman & Arcuri, pp. 421-424, 2001). Research has indicated, “Anthropomorphism is directly related to lack of social connections that one might have” (Waytz, Nicholas, & Cacioppo, pp. 60-61, 2010). A lonelier person is more likely to attribute human qualities to nonhumans in order to satisfy his hunger of social needs. Quite understandably, when anthropomorphism has links with loneliness, being in a crowd and having a strong sense of membership with the crowd may result in the opposite and that is dehumanisation of people from the out-group (Castano & Kofta, pp. 695-698, 2009; Goldenberg, Heflick, Vaes, Motyl & Greenberg, pp. 768-770, 2009). Furthermore, the term of “essentialism” has also been used to describe the root causes of dehumanisation. When people start believing that there are a few essential elements, which make up humans, they are more likely find these characteristics in their in groups rather than out groups. When they fail to find instances of such characteristics with the out groups, they are more likely to view the out-group as not fully essential humans but something lesser (Kaufmann, pp. 14-18, 2010). A study conducted by Delgado, Rodriguez-Perez, Vaes, Leyens & Betancor (2009) revealed that violence in not only the consequence but as well as the cause of dehumanisation as well. Seventy-two students out of which 76.52 were females from the University from the University of La Laguna took part in the experiment about which they were told that it is a visual experiment. In the first stage, participants saw eight pictures depicting human violence, animal violence or every day images (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 1206-1210, 2002). At the second stage, participants did lexical decision-making and at the third stage, they engaged in a recognition task. Towards the end of the research (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 703-705), the researchers were able to find a definite relation between human violence and infrahumanisation of out-group subjects. However, images of animal violence did not have a similar effect on the responses of the participants (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 703-705). There is recent evidence, which also suggest links between anxiety of fear or death with dehumanisation. Three researches conducted by “Jeroen Vaes, psychologist from University of Padova (Italy) and Jamie Goldenberg of the University of South Florida tried to examine the effects of death awareness on the humanisation of in-groups and out-groups” (Castano & Giner-Sorolla, pp. 806-810, 2006). The research study made participants from different countries to write about death or some extremely painful experience. Then they were asked to rate their own group and another group (for example, British rated themselves and the Americana and Germans rated themselves and the Japanese) on various traits. Then these participants were asked to attribute these traits with humans and animals. Interestingly, whenever participants recalled of death, they would go on to attribute human traits to their in-group and identify the out-group as less human (Castano & Giner-Sorolla, pp. 806-810, 2006). Although, there may be some questions and debate on the methodology used by the researchers to reach the above-mentioned conclusions, at least in theory, the conclusions and results make a lot of sense. All the big historical events were we have seen evidence of dehumanization, the fear, or anxiety of death has always remained there. Consider the holocaust where Hitler persuaded millions of Germans people and army men to remove Jews from the face of this planet based on the argument that in the absence of any efforts to prosecute Jews, Jews would overtake the entire Europe and especially Germany (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 1206-1210, 2002; Haslam, Rothschild & Ernst, pp. 95, 2002). Hitler blamed Jews for the loss of the First World War, economic recession and believed that these people have never had their own kingdom. They play the role of parasites where they suck all the blood resources of their hosts and leave them dead. These and many other statements and thoughts of Hitler created a sense of anxiety and fear of death amongst the masses of Germany (Haslam, pp. 113-115, 2011; Sherrer, pp. 258-260, 2008). The same is also true for the Red Scare as well, where the people of America were afraid during the 1919-1920 and then 1947-1950s that Russians and communists would take over their country and spread anarchy all over the country which may result in the loss of many lives. This fear amongst the masses allowed the media and the government to prosecute anyone who had any remote tendency to oppose the American government and the system (Paladino, Leyens, Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Gaunt, & Demoulin, pp. 106-109, 2002). People like A. Mitchell Palmer enjoyed unquestionable authority during the 1919-1920 Red Scare where he and his justice department could question, arrest, kill, or transfer any person in the United States at any time (Castelli, Vanzetto, Sherman & Arcuri, pp. 421-424, 2001). In addition, amendments were made in the law, which made it possible. For many months, there were no questions on such authority because the people were afraid after the bombings and killings of influential people in the United States. This fear of death did not only legitimize these operations but also the degrading views about the Russians and their systems in the American society (Castano & Kofta, pp. 695-698, 2009; Haslam, pp. 258, 2006). Important here to note is that conflict is not the necessary condition for dehumanisation but it has been proven time and time again that considering an in group more human and believing that an out-group is less human, is an inbuilt characteristic of humans. As mentioned earlier that this an important pre-requisite of forming nations, bonds and strong groups (Goldenberg, Heflick, Vaes, Motyl & Greenberg, pp. 768-770, 2009). Furthermore, when people have the feeling that they are superior to others, they feel more and more motivated to put in their effort for the achievement of their group goals (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 1206-1210, 2002). On the other hand, in presence of any guilt or inferiority complex, members will quickly disassociate themselves with the group thus allowing the group to dissolve (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli & Regalia, pp. 125-128, 2001; Haslam, pp. 258, 2006). Although there have not been many researches to explore this particular point but the limited theoretical evidence suggests that in order for dehumanisation to occur, the out-group must be of some relevance to the in-group. There are countless examples of this. For example, before the British invasion of South Asia, there were no strange feelings about the Europeans in the hearts and minds of the South Asians. In fact, they believed that Europeans were the generations of Greeks and the Romans who are responsible for producing the most intellectual people and great philosophical works in the history of humankind (Waytz, Nicholas, & Cacioppo, pp. 60-61, 2010). Before 9/11, although there were discontent with Muslims within specific circles of the west, there was no widespread hatred or dehumanisation of Muslims in the west. However, after the 9/11attacks, majority of the people in the west engaged in the process of dehumanising Muslims based on different reasons (Sherrer, pp. 258-260, 2008). In fact, this dehumanisation has gone on to such an extent where the people of America held nationwide celebrations and parties on the death of Osama bin Laden. There are no doubts in the fact that the leader of Al Qaeda was responsible for the killings of thousands and if he had not been killed then the lives of millions more would be in danger but no ethical code of conduct, religion or law permits celebration on the death of any person, whether a ally or an enemy. However, even the majority of the intellectual and religious has forgotten the fact and refrained from stopping the Americans to celebrate on Osama’s death. Dehumanisation of French speaking Belgians started once the Polish people started feeling that they have become their competitors in the labor market (Leyens, Demoulin, Vaes, Gaunt & Paladino, pp. 142-147, 2007). Furthermore, after 1991, the feelings of dehumanisation of Russians and supporters of communism amongst Americans decreased significantly because the Russian threat was no longer relevant to the Americans after the split of USSR (Haslam, pp. 113-115, 2011). Conclusion The paper aimed at exploring the consequences and causes of dehumanisation of infrahumanisation presents a glance of the available literature regarding the topic accompanied with critical analysis. As the literature has identified, there are various causes of dehumanisation. First, wars and conflicts have always resulted in dehumanisation of the out-group people. In fact, history reveals that authorities, commanders, nations and governments that have used the technique of dehumanising the enemies in the eyes of the general public and their army, have been able to get great results (Waytz, Nicholas, & Cacioppo, pp. 60-61, 2010). Furthermore, not only there had greater chances of being victorious but also they did not even had to answer their people about their brutal killings, inhuman treatment of their enemies and genocides (Esses & Dovidio, pp. 1206-1210, 2002). For example, during the Second World War, Hitler was not accountable to his people or even his allies on his merciless treatment of the Jews, homosexuals and other war enemies. During the Second World War, there were several reported events where the American army went to degrade the dead bodies of the Japanese soldiers. They would go on to cut their dead bodies and keep their skulls, its parts, or other body parts as a trophy (Castano & Kofta, pp. 695-698, 2009). The process of recovery of remains of Japanese soldiers from American generals and military men even continues today. This process continues in the form of the American drone attacks on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Almost every week and sometimes twice or thrice in one week, the American army in Afghanistan would launch drone attacks on any suspected terrorist in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and Western Tribal Pakistan. Statistics and reports reveal that more than 80 percent of the people killed in these drone attacks are innocent people that have nothing to do with the acts of terrorism. However, even after more than five years of drone attacks, these attacks continue to happen. Both the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan have expressed their serious concerns on the issue but there have been no protests in Europe and America regarding these attacks (Waytz, Nicholas, & Cacioppo, pp. 60-61, 2010). During these years, there even have been protests in Europe to save Animal zoos and other wildlife from bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan but no prominent voice has been raised all over Europe on these drone attacks which have killed almost thousands of innocent people. The point here is that the American and European authorities have dehumanised the population of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which such intensity that there are no strong voices left in the entire region to question these governments based on their actions (Haslam, pp. 113-115, 2011). Second, dehumanisation follows deindividuation, which refers to the process of people losing their own identity in very large crowds and groups. People do not feel any direct sense of responsibility for their group actions and end up blindly following the group (Goldenberg, Heflick, Vaes, Motyl & Greenberg, pp. 768-770, 2009). Third, witnessing human violence also results in dehumanisation of out groups. However, research has indicated that dehumanisation is more likely to occur with some sort of relevance to the in-group. In absence of relevance, dehumanisation becomes extremely rare (Castano & Kofta, pp. 695-698, 2009). Furthermore, there are doubts in the fact that consequences of dehumanisation do not remain limited to those specific generations but they continue to go on for many generations. Governments and authorities, in order to maintain their national identity and association may go on to justify and defend the mistakes done by their fore fathers (Delgado, Rodriguez-Perez, Vaes, Leyens & Betancor, pp. 703-705, 2009). In addition, in most of the occasions where power and authority have shifted from oppressors to the former oppressed, the people subjected to oppression previously have tried to do the same with their former oppressors thus making every one deprived of human characteristics of love and compassion (Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens & Giovanazzi, pp. 1019-1024, 2003). References Bandura, A., Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Pastorelli, C., & Regalia, C. (2001). “Sociocognitive self-regulatory mechanisms governing transgressive behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Volume 80, pp. 125–135. Castano, E, & Kofta, M. (2009). “Dehumanization: Humanity and its Denial.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. November 2009, Volume 12, pp. 695-697 Castano, E. & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2006). “Not Quite Human: Infrahumanization in Response to Collective Responsibility for Intergroup Killing.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Volume 90, Issue 5, pp. 804–818 Castelli, L., Vanzetto, K., Sherman, J., & Arcuri, L. (2001). “The explicit and implicit perception of ingroup members who use stereotypes: Blatant rejection but subtle conformity.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Volume 37, pp. 419 – 426. Cortes, B. P., Demoulin, S., Rodriguez, R. T., Rodriguez, A. P., & Leyens, J. P. (2005). “Infrahumanization or familiarity? Attribution of uniquely human emotions to the self, the ingroup, and the out-group.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Volume 31, pp. 243–253. Delgado, N., Rodriguez-Perez, A., Vaes, J., Leyens, J. & Betancor, V. (2009). “Priming Effects of Violence on Infrahumanization.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Volume 12, Issue 6, pp. 699–714. Esses, V. M., & Dovidio, J. F. (2002). “The role of emotions in determining willingness to engage in intergroup contact.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Volume 28, pp. 1202–1214. Gaunt, R., Leyens, J. Ph., & Demoulin, S. (2002). “Intergroup relations and the attribution of emotions: Control over memory for secondary emotions associated with ingroup or outgroup.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Volume 38, pp. 508–514. Goldenberg, J., Heflick, N., Vaes, J., Motyl, Matt., & Greenberg, Jeff. (2009). “Of Mice and Men, and Objectified Women: A Terror Management Account of Infrahumanization.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. November 2009, Volume 12, pp. 763-776. Haslam, N. (2006). “Dehumanization: An Integrative Review.” Personality and Social Psychology Review. Volume 10, Issue 3, pp. 252–264. Haslam, N. (2011). “Power increases dehumanization.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. January 2011, Volume 14, pp. 113-126 Haslam, N., Rothschild, L., & Ernst, D. (2002). “Are essentialist beliefs associated with prejudice?” British Journal of Social Psychology. Volume 41, pp. 87–100. Kaufmann, P. (2010). Humiliation, Degradation, and Dehumanization: Human Dignity Violated. Springer. Leyens, J., Demoulin, S., Vaes, J., Gaunt, R., & Paladino, M. P. (2007). “Infra-humanization: The wall of group differences.” Social Issues and Policy Review. Volume 1, pp. 139 – 172. Mayenin, M. (2007). Dehumanisation of Humanity. Wiley. Paladino, M., Leyens, J., Rodriguez, R., Rodriguez, A., Gaunt, R., & Demoulin, S. (2002). “Differential association of uniquely and non-uniquely human emotions with the ingroup and the outgroup.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Volume 5, pp. 105–117. Rogers, J. (2006). The Accelerating Pace of Dehumanization. Taylor and Francis. Sherrer, H. (2008). Dehumanization Is Not an Option. CreateSpace. Vaes, J., Paladino, M., Castelli, L., Leyens, J., & Giovanazzi, A. (2003). “On the behavioral consequences of infra-humanization: The implicit role of uniquely human emotions in intergroup relations.” Journal of personality and social psychology. Volume 85, pp. 1016-1034. Waytz, A., Epley, N., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). “Social Cognition Unbound Insights into Anthropomorphism and Dehumanization.” Current Directions in Psychological Science. February 2010, Volume 19, pp. 58-62. Read More