Infrahumanisation (or infrahumanization) is the tacitly held belief that one's

ingroup In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example ide ...

is more

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

than an outgroup, which is less human. The term was coined by Jacques-Philippe Leyens and colleagues in the early 2000s to distinguish what they argue to be an everyday phenomenon from

dehumanization Dehumanization is the denial of full humanness in others and the cruelty and suffering that accompanies it. A practical definition refers to it as the viewing and treatment of other persons as though they lack the mental capacities that are c ...

(denial of humanness) associated with extreme intergroup violence such as

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

. According to Leyens and colleagues, infrahumanisation arises when people view their ingroup and outgroup as essentially different ( different in essence) and accordingly reserve the "human essence" for the ingroup and deny it to the outgroup. Whether a "subhuman" classification means "human but inferior" or "not human at all" may be academic, as in practice it corresponds to prejudice regardless (for example, compare the Nazi idea of the

Untermensch ''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non-Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...

). The belief that the outgroup is less human than the ingroup is seldom consciously endorsed by individuals and instead is reflected in the way people tacitly think about the outgroup. Researchers have typically investigated infrahumanisation by looking at the types of

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...

s people believe ingroup and outgroup members possess. Some emotions are considered unique to humans (e.g., love, regret, nostalgia), whereas others are viewed as common to both humans and animals (e.g., joy, anger, sadness). In a series of studies, Leyens and colleagues have widely replicated the finding that people attribute uniquely human emotions to the ingroup, but not the outgroup. According to infrahumanisation theory, the denial of uniquely human emotions to the outgroup is reflective of the belief that they are less human than the ingroup. Recent research has investigated how infrahumanisation influences behaviour. In a series of studies, Jeroen Vaes and his colleagues investigated people's reactions to outgroup members who attempt to "humanise" themselves through the use of uniquely human emotions. They found that ingroup members reacted negatively to outgroup members' attempts to humanise, offering less help and withdrawing faster than when the same uniquely human emotion was expressed by an ingroup member ''or'' when the outgroup member expressed a non-uniquely human emotion. In an American context, Cuddy and colleagues have investigated the influence of infrahumanisation on intergroup helping behaviour. Examining helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Cuddy et al. found that people believed outgroup members experienced less negative uniquely human emotions than ingroup members. The more participants infrahumanised the outgroup member, the less likely they were to help.

References

{{Reflist All articles to be expanded Group processes Moral psychology Prejudice and discrimination