Dehumanizing victims as animals makes killing psychologically easier for perpetrators

Evidence

Cold-blooded killings and barbaric executions require dehumanization of victims to eradicate any restraining moral qualms. It may be even easier to do it if victims are bestialized, with victims often degraded to “dogs.” … A photo showed him kneeling beside a decapitated corpse (El-Naggar, 2015). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2449

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Dehumanizing the victim precedes atrocity through ‘pathic projection’ of the perpetrator’s own image — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 119; Perpetrators can overlook their own role in degrading victims even when they caused it — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 362; Comparing victims to vermin and disease makes killing them psychologically easier — Gregory H. Stanton, Ten Stages of Genocide, 2 (+4 more)