Report Examines Anthropomorphization, Dehumanization
March 2nd, 2010
The human tendency to assign human characteristics to inanimate objects or animals has a long and rich history in the written record, and two researchers from Harvard University and the University of Chicago have recently investigated this history as well as the potential reasons why we practice anthropomorphism and its opposing tendency, dehumanization. The report suggests that personal emotional elements such as loneliness or familiarity with an object or animal may influence a person and cause greater urges to think of non-human entities in a certain way, while certain group behaviors and beliefs may support instances of dehumanization, particularly in violent or stressful settings. The research may help therapists and others interested in psychology better understand the human relationship with the world.
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The dehumanization aspect of this rings so true for I feel that we so separate ourselves from things going on in other parts of the world that we tend to overlook the suffering that is going on. The same thing goes for when we simply do something like behave rudely to someone that we do not know because we think that since they are not a part of our everyday lives then that entitles us to dehumanize them and treat them in any way that we feel like. I know I have certainly done this with someone like a telemarketer for example. We have no face or relationship to connect to that voice at the other end of the line, therefore we dehumanize them and are rude. Bad habits but ones that are awfully hard to break.
I just think this is because we expect others to be negative/neutral to us…we do not expect anybody to be kind or nice to us, and hence we treat others in a similar way- unpleasant and unwelcoming. Everybody will say it would be great if everybody was nice to good to everybody else, but ask them to start and they will back off!
Do you think that dehumanization is what allows many criminals such as murderers to commit the crimes that they do? They do not see the victims as being real, only a target for their rage. This would be something curious to know more about, whether or not this has been studied within the prison systems around the world. There would have to be some kind of process like this going on for someone to be able to take the life of another.
I think dehumanization is a very negative and cruel thing that we humans are capable of…we need to reflect on it and think on it this way- if we can dehumanize someone, the same can be done to us by another person…as JTF has pointed out above, this may well be the reason why some people just commit murders, more so people who commit murders in a brutal way, because I don’t think anybody can bring himself to do such a thing to another person without such a negative thing in mind…
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