Abstract
The article studies the phenomenon of infrahumanization in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Infrahumanization means a tendency to attribute secondary (purely human) emotions to outgroup members in a lesser extent comparing to ingroup members. The study purpose was to reveal how differences in perceived stability and legitimacy of statuses influence Ukrainians’ infrahumanization of Russians, as well as to summarize methodological approaches to the study and measurement of this phenomenon. The study involved 101 Ukrainian psychologists (83.2% women; average age 35). The participants were asked to assess the expression of primary and secondary emotions in the protagonists (Ukrainian and Russian psychologists) in four scenarios describing how some trainings were conducted for Ukrainian refugees (with positive and negative feedback from the training participants). Participants’ perceptions of political regime stability in Russia and the legitimacy of Russia’s invasion to Ukraine were also measured. Multivariate analysis of variance and multiple linear regression were used to analyse the obtained data. The results confirmed an existing infrahumanization effect for negative emotions – participants attributed more negative secondary emotions to Ukrainian psychologists compared to Russian psychologists. Regression analysis showed that perceived political regime stability in Russia was negatively related to infrahumanization (b = -0.20, p < 0.01), while perceived legitimacy of the invasion was positively related to infrahumanization (b = 0.16, p < 0.01). This means that participants who considered the regime in Russia unstable and justified the invasion demonstrated a higher level of infrahumanization of Russians.
Published Version
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