Slur complexity, not negativity, predicts group exclusion

Evidence

The evidence to date indicates that ethnophaulism complexity tends to be a stronger predictor of the negative consequences of ethnophaulisms than ethnophaulism valence. In both Mullen and Rice (2003) and Mullen (2004), across 150 years of archival data, ethnophaulism complexity was a better predictor of the exclusion of ethnic immigrant outgroups than ethnophaulism valence. This pattern of results was recently replicated in the controlled experimental examination of the use of ethnophaulisms. Mullen, Leader, and Rice (2004) had participants use ethnophaulisms for an ethnic immigrant outgroup. Increasing the negativity of the ethnophaulisms had no apparent effect, but decreasing the complexity of the ethnophaulisms led to greater subsequent exclusion of the group. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1286

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘ethnophaulism complexity’ — the dimensionality/cognitive elaboration of the slur set — and shows it, not mere negativity, drives harm.
• QUESTION: Why does complexity beat valence? The mechanism — infrahumanization as reduced cognitive elaboration — is postulated but the causal pathway deserves chasing.
• DEEPTHINKING: The finding that less elaborate slurs harm more than harsher ones is paradigm-shifting: it flips the intuitive ‘worst word does the most damage’ model toward cognitive-representation accounts of dehumanization.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 1286