I Am Not a Full Person: Perceiving threat of COVID-19 leads to self-dehumanization

Abstract

As a worldwide pandemic, COVID-19 has affected billions of people's lives. The disease threatens people's health, wrecks the global economy, and triggers social problems. Beyond doubt, people feel threatened by the pandemic. We hypothesized that people would dehumanize themselves when faced with the threat of COVID-19. The current three studies confirmed our hypothesis (Ntotal = 2301). Specifically, we found that the threat of COVID-19 was positively related to self-dehumanization (Study 1). In Study 2, the manipulation of the threat of COVID-19 further indicated its causal effect on self-dehumanization. Moreover, we also examined the adverse consequence of self-dehumanization. People in Study 3a experienced poor psychological well-being when they were threatened by COVID-19, which was mediated by stronger self-dehumanization. Moreover, we identified the causal relationship between self-dehumanization and poor psychological well-being in Study 3b. In sum, our findings suggest the negative effect of the perceived threat of COVID-19 on self-perception and psychological health. We also discussed the theoretical and practical implications.