Intersecting theories of essentialism and ethnocentrism, Leyens and his colleagues (2000) recently documented people’s tendency to infra-humanize (some) outgroups. Specifically, they observed that people were more reluctant to attribute or associate uniquely human emotions to the outgroup than to the ingroup. The present paper aims at investigating the behavioral consequences of people’s tendency to infra-humanize the outgroup in the realm of perspective taking. Derived form the theory of Leyens et al. (2000, 2001) and previous research (Vaes et al., 2003), it was hypothesized that participants would take the perspective of an ingroup target more easily than that of an out-group target, when they described their past week in terms of uniquely human emotions. Perspective taking was measured with the drawing-an-E-on-your-forehead procedure (Hass, 1984) and the intergroup context was induced experimentally through a subjective essentialism manipulation. Also, participants were asked to report their familiarity with the target. Results confirmed the hypothesis even when participants’ familiarity was controlled for. The role of essentialism and familiarity in intergroup relations is discussed and some suggestions for future research are made.

Perspective taking in an intergroup context and the use of uniquely human emotions: Drawing an E on your forehead

VAES, JEROEN ANDRE' FILIP;
2004

Abstract

Intersecting theories of essentialism and ethnocentrism, Leyens and his colleagues (2000) recently documented people’s tendency to infra-humanize (some) outgroups. Specifically, they observed that people were more reluctant to attribute or associate uniquely human emotions to the outgroup than to the ingroup. The present paper aims at investigating the behavioral consequences of people’s tendency to infra-humanize the outgroup in the realm of perspective taking. Derived form the theory of Leyens et al. (2000, 2001) and previous research (Vaes et al., 2003), it was hypothesized that participants would take the perspective of an ingroup target more easily than that of an out-group target, when they described their past week in terms of uniquely human emotions. Perspective taking was measured with the drawing-an-E-on-your-forehead procedure (Hass, 1984) and the intergroup context was induced experimentally through a subjective essentialism manipulation. Also, participants were asked to report their familiarity with the target. Results confirmed the hypothesis even when participants’ familiarity was controlled for. The role of essentialism and familiarity in intergroup relations is discussed and some suggestions for future research are made.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11577/1374345
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