The uniquely human content of stereotypes

The uniquely human content of stereotypes was measured in nine different inter-group comparisons that varied in terms of competence and warmth. Results indicated that the infrahumanization bias understood as people's tendency to see in-group relative to out-group stereotypes as more human occurred in almost all inter-group situations. Secondly, mainly out-groups that lack both warmth and competence were clearly infrahumanized as a result of a denial of out-group humanity. Finally, results suggested that among the different out-groups it was especially those high in competence, low in warmth that were seen as most uniquely human. As such, the current work extends previous research on infrahumanization to stereotypes, shows that group typology moderates the infrahumanization bias and demonstrates the affinity between the uniquely human and the competence dimension. © The Author(s) 2009.