Psychological essentialism and the differential attribution of uniquely human emotions to ingroups and outgroups

By J. Leyens, Armando Rodríguez-Pérez, Ramón Rodríguez-Torres, R. Gaunt, Maria Paola Paladino, Jeroen Vaes, S. Demoulin. 2001

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According to the psychological essentialism perspective, people tend to explain differences between groups by attributing them different essences. Given a pervasive ethnocentrism, this tendency implies that the human essence will be restricted to the ingroup whereas outgroups will receive a lesser degree of humanity. Therefore, it is argued that people attribute more uniquely human characteristics to the ingroup than to the outgroup. The present article focuses on secondary emotions that constitute such characteristics. Study 1 showed that members of high- and low-status groups attribute more positive secondary emotions to the ingroup than to the outgroup. Study 2 verified that the differential attribution extended also to negative secondary emotions. No exemplars of emotions were provided in Study, 3. Instead, participants had to estimate the means of two distributions of numbers that supposedly, represented characteristics of the ingroup and of the outgroup. The results of this third experiment illustrated the reluctance to attribute secondary emotions to the outgroup. The findings are discussed from the perspective of psychological essentialism. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d0b8df7a54dcfd0fa7de470cf1e9081f3675ec6d

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Citations in the corpus

Seeing brands as humans: Development and validation of a brand anthropomorphism scale (2020, background): “Anthropomorphism also includes attributing behavioural characteristics, observable human-like concepts and refined emotional states to non-human agents (Epley et al., 2007; Leyens et al., 2001).”
The Emotional Cost of Humanity (2016, background): “Yet we often engage in dehumanization: the denial of mental states to other human beings (Fiske, 2013; Harris & Fiske, 2006, 2011; Haslam, 2006; Haslam & Loughnan, 2014; Leyens et al., 2001).”
The uniquely human content of stereotypes (2010, background): “These authors have shown that people commonly attribute more uniquely human “secondary” emotions to their in-group than to out-groups but do not differentially attribute the non-uniquely human “primary” emotions that we share with other animals (Leyens et al., 2001).”
Aid in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Inferences of Secondary Emotions and Intergroup Helping (2007, background): “…not an interpersonal, phenomenon (Leyens et al., 2003).1 However, in most of these studies, participants were asked to ascribe emotions as traits of groups by indicating whether a list of emotions characterize a given group (e.g. Leyens et al., 2001; Paladino et al., 2002; Vaes et al., 2003).”
Exploring the roots of dehumanization: The role of animal—human similarity in promoting immigrant humanization (2010, background): “For instance, people typically perceive equivalent levels of primary emotions (e.g., happiness, fear) that are common to humans and non-human animals in both ingroups and outgroups, but attribute fewer uniquely human emotions (e.g., compassion, remorse) to outgroups (Leyens et al., 2000, 2001).”
Beyond secondary emotions: The infrahumanization of outgroups using human-related and animal-related words (2006, background): “In line with previous research (Leyens et al., 2001), participants associated more human-related words with ingroup compared to outgroup names regardless of valence.”
Direct, extended, and mass-mediated contact with immigrants in Italy: their associations with emotions, prejudice, and humanity perceptions (2017, background): “…humanity bias can be expressed through the belief that the ingroup experiences more secondary, uniquely human emotions than the outgroup (e.g., Leyens et al. 2001), or through the attribution of more uniquely human traits or characteristics to the ingroup than to the outgroup (e.g., MacInnis…”
Intergroup contact and intergroup attitudes: a longitudinal study (2007, background): “In a series of studies, using both explicit and implicit techniques in different intergroup settings, Leyens and others have found evidence that people do, indeed, attribute more secondary emotions to the ingroup than to the outgroup (Gaunt, Leyens, &Demoulin, 2002; Leyens et al., 2001; Paladino et ”
Psychological essentialism and stereotype endorsement (2006, background): “Some research and theory has linked essentialist beliefs to intergroup phenomena, with Leyens et al. (2001) arguing that they underpin the tendency to selectively deny human attributes to outgroup members, but little work has directly addressed links between these beliefs and stereotyping.”
Group membership alters the threshold for mind perception: The role of social identity, collective identification, and intergroup threat (2014, background): “In less extreme cases, out-group members are " infrahumanized " —judged as less capable of experiencing complex, uniquely human emotions such as nostalgia and compassion (Demoulin et al., 2009; Leyens et al., 2001)—or denied humanity by being seen as animalistic or as automata (Haslam, 2006).”
Not yet human: implicit knowledge, historical dehumanization, and contemporary consequences. (2008, background): “Leyens and his colleagues, for instance, have examined the attribution of secondary—more human— emotions (Demoulin et al., 2004, 2005; Gaunt, Leyens, & Demoulin, 2002; Leyens et al., 2001, 2003; Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003; Vaes, Paladino, & Leyens, 2004, 2006).”
When Closing the Human–Animal Divide Expands Moral Concern (2012, background): “This is because humans are perceived to share the capacity for sensation with animals but are differentiated by their capacity for intellect (Gray et al., 2007; Haslam, 2006; Haslam, Kashima, Loughnan, Shi, & Suitner, 2008; Leyens et al., 2000; 2001; Marcu, Lyons, & Hegarty, 2007).”
The Politics of Emotion in Everyday Life: “Appropriate” Emotion and Claims on Identity (2005, background): “…of recent studies on in-groups’ perspectives on their own and on out-groups’ emotions illustrates how beliefs about emotion may create the conditions for understanding and valuing in-group emotional responses differently from those of an out-group (Leyens et al., 2000, 2001; Paladino et al., 2002).”
Understanding the Relationship between Attribute-Based and Metaphor-Based Dehumanization (2009, background): “748 of humanness, specifi cally the denial of uniquely human emotions to outgroup members (Boccato, Cortes, Demoulin, & Leyens, 2007; Leyens et al., 2001; Paladino et al., 2002).”