Does status affect intergroup perceptions of humanity?

Abstract

Across three studies, we examined whether ingroup status may affect intergroup perceptions of humanity. In Studies 1 and 2, we considered real groups: Northern versus Southern Italians; in Study 3, we manipulated the socioeconomic status of two minimal groups. In all studies, members of higher status groups perceived the ingroup as more human than the outgroup, while members of lower status groups did not assign a privileged human status to the ingroup. Such findings were obtained using different implicit techniques: the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT). Further, results suggest that the different perceptions of humanity may depend on the stereotypic traits generally ascribed to higher and lower status groups. The implications of results for infrahumanization research are discussed.