Acknowledging in-group responsibility for past atrocities increases infrahumanization of the victim group

Evidence

In line with the hypothesis that out-groups are infrahumanized, in the low-impact condition, the attribution to the Aborigines of the capability to experience a specific emotion was lower for uniquely human emotions than for emotions shared with animals. But this tendency was magnified in the high-impact condition. In other words, compared to participants in the low-impact condition, those participants who learned that the British colonizers decimated the Aborigines were more inclined to see them as not quite human (Castano & Giner-Sorolla, 2006, Study 2). Two studies yielded further evidence in support of our hypothesis. One study was a conceptual replication, in which white Americans learned about the effects of the arrival of the white man in North America on the Native American population.* In this case, we observed an enhanced infra-humanization of Native Americans among those participants who had been confronted with a narrative that stressed the quasi-extermination of the Native Americans by the white newcomers (Castano & Giner-Sorolla, 2006, Study 3). Another study tested this hypothesis in the context of an alleged science fiction movie, in which the in-group was humans and the out-group aliens. In this case too, in-group responsibility for the death of a large number of aliens (as manipulated, or as subjectively perceived by the participants) led to greater infra-humanization of the aliens (Castano & Giner-Sorolla, 2006, Study 1). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2108

Categorization

• XREF: Directly corroborates/complicates the moral disengagement and prejudice mechanisms under review in the Allport thread; also connects to the moral disengagement literature on historical guilt. — connects to: Reparations raise perpetrator groups’ moral standing and reduce intergroup tension — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 725; In-group perpetrated misdeeds ironically heighten victim dehumanization — Emanuele Castano, On the Perils of Glorifying the…, 75; Proximal war experience fosters critical knowledge that increases in-group accountability. — Sandra Penic, Guy Elcheroth, and Dario Spini, When Is Collective Exposure to War…, 26 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2108