Ours is human: On the pervasiveness of infra-humanization in intergroup relations

Both at a conceptual and an empirical level, infra‐humanization has been put on par with the relative greater attribution of uniquely human emotions to the in‐group, assuming that a group's humanity is exclusively a matter of having uniquely human characteristics. In the present research we suggest that people also adopt another strategy to infra‐humanize the out‐group by considering those aspects that characterize and differentiate the in‐group from the out‐group as more uniquely human. In three studies, characteristics presented as typical of the in‐group and the out‐group were judged on a not uniquely human–uniquely human dimension. In addition to humanity, in Study 3 participants judged in‐group and out‐group characteristics also on an evaluative dimension. Consistent with the hypothesis, participants judged in‐group characteristics as more human than those of the out‐group, independent of their valence. The implications of these results for infra‐humanization theory are discussed.