scholarly journals Blatant dehumanization in the mind's eye: Prevalent even among those who explicitly reject it?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D Petsko ◽  
Ryan Lei ◽  
Jonas R. Kunst ◽  
Emile Bruneau ◽  
Nour Kteily
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
The Political ◽  
Perceptual Task ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Political Right ◽  
Mind's Eye

Research suggests that some people, particularly those on the political right, have a tendency to blatantly dehumanize low-status groups. However, these findings have largely relied on self-report measures, which are notoriously subject to social desirability concerns. To better understand just how widely blatant forms of intergroup dehumanization might extend, the present paper leverages an unobtrusive, data-driven perceptual task to examine how U.S. respondents mentally represent ‘Americans’ vs. ‘Arabs’ (a low-status group in the U.S. that is often explicitly targeted with blatant dehumanization). Data from two reverse-correlation experiments (original N = 108; pre-registered replication N = 336) and seven rating studies (N = 2,301) suggest that U.S. respondents’ mental representations of Arabs are significantly more dehumanizing than their representations of Americans. Furthermore, analyses indicate that this phenomenon is not reducible to a general tendency for our sample to mentally represent Arabs more negatively than Americans. Finally, these findings reveal that blatantly dehumanizing representations of Arabs can be just as prevalent among individuals exhibiting low levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., liberals) as among individuals exhibiting high levels of explicit dehumanization (e.g., conservatives)—a phenomenon into which exploratory analyses suggest liberals may have only limited awareness. Taken together, these results suggest that blatant dehumanization may be more widespread than previously recognized, and that it can persist even in the minds of those who explicitly reject it.

scholarly journals The Self in the Mind’s Eye: Revealing How We Truly See Ourselves Through Reverse Correlation

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110186
Author(s):  
Lara Maister ◽  
Sophie De Beukelaer ◽  
Matthew R. Longo ◽  
Manos Tsakiris
Keyword(s):  
Body Shape ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Correlation Technique ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Total N ◽  
Body Shapes ◽  
Mind's Eye ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes

Is there a way to visually depict the image people “see” of themselves in their minds’ eyes? And if so, what can these mental images tell us about ourselves? We used a computational reverse-correlation technique to explore individuals’ mental “self-portraits” of their faces and body shapes in an unbiased, data-driven way (total N = 116 adults). Self-portraits were similar to individuals’ real faces but, importantly, also contained clues to each person’s self-reported personality traits, which were reliably detected by external observers. Furthermore, people with higher social self-esteem produced more true-to-life self-portraits. Unlike face portraits, body portraits had negligible relationships with individuals’ actual body shape, but as with faces, they were influenced by people’s beliefs and emotions. We show how psychological beliefs and attitudes about oneself bias the perceptual representation of one’s appearance and provide a unique window into the internal mental self-representation—findings that have important implications for mental health and visual culture.

scholarly journals A multimethod approach to measuring mental representations of threatening others

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Michael Michalak ◽  
Joshua Ackerman
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Correlation Method ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Threat Processing ◽  
Multimethod Approach ◽  
Threat Cues ◽  
Multi Method Approach ◽  
Method Approach

How do people mentally represent distinct interpersonal threats? Across human history, interpersonal threats such as infectious disease and violence have posed powerful selection pressures. Such pressures selected for psychological systems that help identify and reduce threats posed by other people. In the case of infectious disease, psychology researchers have found that such systems respond to a variety of infection cues (e.g., rashes, swelling) as well as cues that merely resemble infection cues (e.g., birthmarks, obesity). Are such cues part of people’s mental representations, and if so, are those cues unique to infection representations or are they included in representations of other threats? Using a multi-method approach, we find that when participants listed traits or drew mental representations of threat, they perceived infected and violent others to differ along threat-specific features. However, when using a data-driven, reverse correlation method that restricted participants from deliberating on and editing their representations, participants generated mental images that were similar on many of the features that both researchers and laypeople expect to distinguish infection and violence threats. These findings suggest our understanding of threat processing may suffer from a disconnect between the threat cues derived from the expectations of researchers and those revealed when expectations are constrained.

scholarly journals Simply Insane? Attributing Terrorism to Mental Illness (Versus Ideology) Affects Mental Representations of Race

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (12) ◽  
pp. 1888-1902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas R. Kunst ◽  
Lisa S. Myhren ◽  
Ivuoma N. Onyeador
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Extreme Violence

Mainstream media and public figures are often criticized for readily attributing terrorism committed by White perpetrators to mental illness, while attributing the same behavior committed by non-Whites to ideological motivation. Using a data-driven reverse-correlation approach, we show that attributing terrorism to mental illness results in a phenotypically more White mental representation of the perpetrator as compared with attributing terrorism to ideology or providing no information about its motivation. Importantly, we show that, because terrorists who are described as being motivated by mental illness are perceived as more White than those motivated by ideology, they are subsequently judged as less guilty for alleged terrorist activities. We present further evidence that this effect may be due to perceived Whiteness signaling higher socio-economic status, which reduces perceptions of culpability. In sum, our research demonstrates that extreme violence attributed to unintentional causes is perceptually associated with White perpetrators, leading to leniency in criminal judgments.

scholarly journals Simply insane? Attributing terrorism to mental illness (versus ideology) affects mental representations of race Word

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas R. Kunst
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Extreme Violence

Mainstream media and public figures are often criticized for readily attributing terrorism committed by White perpetrators to mental illness, while attributing the same behavior committed by non-Whites to ideological motivation. Using a data-driven reverse-correlation approach, we show that attributing terrorism to mental illness results in a phenotypically more White mental representation of the perpetrator as compared to attributing terrorism to ideology or providing no information about its motivation. Importantly, we show that, because terrorists who are described as being motivated by mental illness are perceived as more White than those motivated by ideology, they are subsequently judged as less guilty for alleged terrorist activities. We present further evidence that this effect may be due to perceived Whiteness signaling higher socio-economic status, which reduces perceptions of culpability. In sum, our research demonstrates that extreme violence attributed to unintentional causes is perceptually associated with White perpetrators, leading to leniency in criminal judgements.

The Impact of Visual Stereotypes on Judgments about Rape

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Robert Busching ◽  
Johannes Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Rape Myth ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Correlation Technique ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Legally irrelevant information like facial features is used to form judgments about rape cases. Using a reverse-correlation technique, it is possible to visualize criminal stereotypes and test whether these representations influence judgments. In the first step, images of the stereotypical faces of a rapist, a thief, and a lifesaver were generated. These images showed a clear distinction between the lifesaver and the two criminal representations, but the criminal representations were rather similar. In the next step, the images were presented together with rape scenarios, and participants (N = 153) indicated the defendant’s level of liability. Participants with high rape myth acceptance scores attributed a lower level of liability to a defendant who resembled a stereotypical lifesaver. However, no specific effects of the image of the stereotypical rapist compared to the stereotypical thief were found. We discuss the findings with respect to the influence of visual stereotypes on legal judgments and the nature of these mental representations.

Nazistowski mord na Żydach w prasie polskich komunistów (1942–1944).

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover

Process Philosophy and Political Liberalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Dombrowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Static View ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

In this work two key theses are defended: political liberalism is a processual (rather than a static) view and process thinkers should be political liberals. Three major figures are considered (Rawls, Whitehead, Hartshorne) in the effort to show the superiority of political liberalism to its illiberal alternatives on the political right and left. Further, a politically liberal stance regarding nonhuman animals and the environment is articulated. It is typical for debates in political philosophy to be adrift regarding the concept of method, but from start to finish this book relies on the processual method of reflective equilibrium or dialectic at its best. This is the first extended effort to argue for both political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy/theology as a politically liberal view. It is also a timely defense of political liberalism against illiberal tendencies on both the right and the left.

Public Opinion in Israel: The Sociodemographic Nexus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Hermann
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Strategic Issues ◽  
National Consensus ◽  
Deep Disagreements ◽  
Political Right ◽  
The Impact

In Israel, as in many other countries, the impact of public opinion on national policymaking has increased dramatically over the last few decades. In fact, public opinion has practically developed into one of the prime political inputs in Israel. This chapter argues that this increased impact, which could have contributed to improving the Israeli democracy, is in fact often undermined by the increasing overlapping of the main cleavages within Israel: between the political Right and Left, between Jews and Arabs, and between religious and secular Israelis. This extreme overlapping has severely eroded the national consensus and accelerated the emergence of deep disagreements in public opinion over strategic issues, such as the nature of the state (Jewish? Democratic?), the main challenges facing the nation (including the best way of dealing with the protracted Israeli–Palestinian conflict), and the desired collective future.

scholarly journals Sports, Transgender Rights and the Bodily Politics of Cisgender Supremacy

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Sharrow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Legislative Proposals ◽  
Gendered Bodies ◽  
Political Right

Between 2020 and 2021, one hundred and ten bills in state legislatures across the United States suggested banning the participation of transgender athletes on sports teams for girls and women. As of July 2021, ten such bills have become state law. This paper tracks the political shift towards targeting transgender athletes. Conservative political interests now seek laws that suture biological determinist arguments to civil rights of bodies. Although narrow binary definitions of sex have long operated in the background as a means for policy implementation under Title IX, Republican lawmakers now aim to reframe sex non-discrimination policies as means of gendered exclusion. The content of proposals reveal the centrality of ideas about bodily immutability, and body politics more generally, in shaping the future of American gender politics. My analysis of bills from 2021 argues that legislative proposals advance a logic of “cisgender supremacy” inhering in political claims about normatively gendered bodies. Political institutions are another site for advancing, enshrining, and normalizing cis-supremacist gender orders, explicitly joining cause with medical authorities as arbiters of gender normativity. Characteristics of bodies and their alleged role in evidencing sex itself have fueled the tactics of anti-transgender activists on the political Right. However, the target of their aims is not mere policy change but a state-sanctioned return to a narrowly cis- and heteropatriarchal gender order.

scholarly journals A Data-Driven Framework for Coding the Intent and Extent of Political Tweeting, Disinformation, and Extremism

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Mahdi Hashemi
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Affiliation ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The U.S

Disinformation campaigns on online social networks (OSNs) in recent years have underscored democracy’s vulnerability to such operations and the importance of identifying such operations and dissecting their methods, intents, and source. This paper is another milestone in a line of research on political disinformation, propaganda, and extremism on OSNs. A total of 40,000 original Tweets (not re-Tweets or Replies) related to the U.S. 2020 presidential election are collected. The intent, focus, and political affiliation of these political Tweets are determined through multiple discussions and revisions. There are three political affiliations: rightist, leftist, and neutral. A total of 171 different classes of intent or focus are defined for Tweets. A total of 25% of Tweets were left out while defining these classes of intent. The purpose is to assure that the defined classes would be able to cover the intent and focus of unseen Tweets (Tweets that were not used to determine and define these classes) and no new classes would be required. This paper provides these classes, their definition and size, and example Tweets from them. If any information is included in a Tweet, its factuality is verified through valid news sources and articles. If any opinion is included in a Tweet, it is determined that whether or not it is extreme, through multiple discussions and revisions. This paper provides analytics with regard to the political affiliation and intent of Tweets. The results show that disinformation and extreme opinions are more common among rightists Tweets than leftist Tweets. Additionally, Coronavirus pandemic is the topic of almost half of the Tweets, where 25.43% of Tweets express their unhappiness with how Republicans have handled this pandemic.

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