Successful groups are seen as more agentic and therefore more human— Consequences for group perception

Abstract

Dehumanization predominantly affects groups facing structural inequalities and these groups often experience low agency in attaining satisfactory work and living conditions. Given that seeing groups as low in agency may underlie the association between social disadvantage and dehumanization, in seven preregistered studies (N = 1502), we examined how to raise the perceived agency of disadvantaged groups to increase their humanness ascriptions. Several groups were presented as either succeeding or failing in various contexts (e.g., fighting for human rights, building a community center, crossing the border). Additionally, in five of those studies we added a manipulation of self-relevance to further increase the ecological validity of the presented manipulations. Across all studies, and independent of other factors, success increased agency, which in turn translated to lower dehumanization. The results indicated that shifting the narrative regarding the disadvantaged groups to reflect their successes rather than failures can improve the perception of those groups.