The unique effects of blatant dehumanization on attitudes and behavior towards Muslim refugees during the European ‘refugee crisis’ across four countries

By Emile G. Bruneau, Nour S. Kteily, Lasse Laustsen. 2018

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Blatant dehumanization has recently been demonstrated to predict negative outgroup attitudes and behaviors. Here, we examined blatant dehumaniza-tion of Muslim refugees during the ‘ Refugee Crisis ’ among large samples in four European countries: the Czech Republic ( N = 1307), Hungary ( N = 502), Spain ( N = 1049), and Greece ( N = 934). Our results suggest that blatant dehumanization of Muslim refugees is (a) prevalent among Europeans, and (b) uniquely associated with anti-refugee attitudes and behavior, beyond political ideology, prejudice, and — of particular relevance to the refugee crisis — empathy. We also fi nd that blatant dehumanization of Muslim refugees is signi fi cantly higher and more strongly associated with intergroup behavior in the Eastern European countries (especially the Czech Republic) than in Spain and Greece. Examining a range of outgroup targets beyond refugees, our results further illustrate that blatant dehumanization is not purely an ethnocentric bias: while individuals across contexts feel warmer towards their group than all others, they rate several high-status outgroups as equally or more fully ‘ evolved and civilized ’ than the ingroup. Our research extends theoretical

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/27331192dcd258065ff28d23a1560677cb542877