Dehumanization

Discrimination
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Social Arophobia Acephobia Adultism Anti-altruistic Anti-homelessness Anti-drug addicts Anti-intellectualism Anti-Masonry Aporophobia Audism Biphobia Elitism Endophobia Ephebiphobia Health mental in poverty Fatphobia Gayphobia Gerontophobia Heterosexism HIV/AIDS stigma Hypergamy Homophobia In-group Leprosy stigma Lesbophobia Against men Misandry Misogyny Misogynoir Nepotism Outgroup Perpetual foreigner Pregnancy Sectarianism Supremacism Aryanism Black Hutu Chauvinism Han Female Human Nordicism Male Ultranationalism White Transphobia Non-binary Transmisogyny Trans men Vegaphobia Xenophilia Xenophobia
Religious Religious exemption Persecution of non-believers Atheism In Islam Apostasy Religious police Jizya Religious persecution In China Exclusivism Baháʼí Faith Buddhism Christianity Persecution Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy Coptic Christianity Jehovah's Witnesses LDS or Mormon Protestantism Tewahedo Orthodoxy post–Cold War era Falun Gong Hinduism Persecution Untouchability Islam Persecution Ahmadiyya Shi'ism Sufism Sunnism minority Muslim Judaism Persecution Neopaganism Rastafari Serers Sikhism Yazidism Zoroastrianism
Race or ethnicity Afghan Pashtun Hazara African Fulani Igbo Serers Albanian Arab Armenian Asian France South Africa United States Assyrian Austrian Azerbaijani Black people African American China South Africa Bengali Catalan Chechen Chinese Han people Colombian Croat Dutch English Estonian Filipino French Finnish Georgian German Greek Haitian Hungarian Indian Indonesian Indigenous people Australia Canada United States Iranian Irish Israeli Italian Japanese Jewish Eliminationist New Religious Anti-Yiddish Zionist Khmer Korean Kurdish Lithuanian Malay Māori Mexican Middle Eastern Mongolian Montenegrin Nigerian Pakistani Palestinian Pashtun Polish Portuguese Quebec Romani Romanian Russian Scottish Serb Slavic Somali Spanish Taiwanese Tatar Thai Tibetan Turkish Ukrainian Uyghur Venezuelan Vietnamese Welsh White people
Manifestations Algorithmic bias Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric SPLC-designated list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups Blood libel Bullying Cancel culture Capital punishment for homosexuality Carnism Compulsory sterilization Corrective rape Counter-jihad Cultural genocide Defamation Democide Dog whistle Domicide Economic Education Academic In curricula Sexism Eliminationism Eliminationist antisemitism Employment Enemy of the people Environmental racism Ethnic cleansing Ethnic conflict Ethnic hatred Ethnic joke Ethnocide Excellence Gender-based dress codes Cosmetics policy High heel policy Forced conversion Freak show Gay bashing Gendercide Transgender genocide Genital modification and mutilation Circumcision Female genital mutilation Intersex medical interventions Genocide examples Glass ceiling Hate crime Disability hate crime Violence against LGBTQ people Violence against transgender people Hate group Hate speech Institutional discrimination Institutional racism Homeless dumping Housing Hypergamy Age disparity Indian rolling International inequality Kill Haole Day Lavender scare LGBTQ+ grooming conspiracy theory Linguicide Lynching Media bias Minority stress Moral exclusion Mortgage Native American mascots Occupational Apartheid Inequality Injustice Segregation Opposition to immigration Paper genocide Persecution Pogrom Political Political repression Ideological repression Purge Racialization Religious persecution Religious terrorism Religious violence Religious war Scapegoating Selective enforcement Selective prosecution Sentencing disparity Sexual harassment Sex-selective abortion Slut-shaming Structural abuse Structural discrimination Structural evil Structural inequality Structural violence Untermensch Trans bashing Victimisation Violence against women White flight White genocide conspiracy theory Wife selling Witch hunt
Policies Algorithmic wage discrimination Age of candidacy Apartheid in South Africa in Israel Blood purity Blood quantum Breadwinner model Conscription and sexism Disabilities Catholic Jewish Disparate impact Fagging Gender pay gap Gender roles Protecting Women's Private Spaces Act Gerontocracy Gerrymandering Ghetto benches Internment Jewish quota Opposition to LGBTQ rights MSM blood donation restrictions No kid zone Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota) One-drop rule Persecution of transgender people under the second Trump administration Racial quota Racial steering Redlining Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting) Segregation age racial Jim Crow laws Nuremberg Laws Segregation academy religious sexual in Islam Social exclusion Sodomy law State atheism State religion Ugly law Voter suppression White Australia policy
Countermeasures Affirmative action Anti-discrimination law Anti-racism Audit study Autism rights movement Gender-blind Blind audition Constitutional colorblindness Cross-sex friendship Cultural assimilation Cultural pluralism Diversity, equity, and inclusion Diversity training Empowerment Fat acceptance movement Feminism Fighting Discrimination Golden Rule Hate speech laws by country Human rights Intersex human rights Korenizatsiia LGBTQ rights Mad pride Music in the movement against apartheid Racial integration Reappropriation Rock Against Sexism Self-determination Social integration Stop Murder Music Toleration Transgender rights movement Universal suffrage Women's rights
Related topics Allophilia Amatonormativity Bias Capital punishment for homosexuality Cisnormativity Civil liberties Criminalization of homosexuality Dehumanization Diseases of despair Ethnic penalty Figleaf Heteronormativity Historical eugenics Internalized oppression Intersectionality Masculism Nazi concentration camp badge Oikophobia Oppression Police brutality Polyculturalism Power distance Prejudice Prisoner abuse Racial bias in criminal news in the United States Racism by country Racial color blindness Religious intolerance Second-generation gender bias Snobbery Social equity Social exclusion Social model of disability Social privilege Christian male white Social stigma Speciesism Stereotype The talk

Dehumanization is the process, practice, or act of denying full humanity in others,^[1] along with the cruelty and suffering that accompany it.^[2]^[3]^[4] It involves perceiving individuals or groups as lacking essential human qualities, such as secondary emotions and mental capacities, thereby placing them outside the bounds of moral concern.^[1] In this definition, any act or thought that regards a person as either "other than" and "less than" human constitutes dehumanization.^[5]^[6]

Dehumanization can be overt or subtle,^[7] and typically manifests in two primary forms: animalistic dehumanization, which denies uniquely human traits like civility, culture, or rationality and likens others to animals;^[3] and mechanistic dehumanization, which denies traits of human nature such as warmth, emotion, and individuality, portraying others as objects or machines.^[3]

It has historically facilitated a broad range of harms, from discrimination and social exclusion to slavery,^[1] colonization,^[8] as well as other crimes against humanity,^[1] and is recognized as a significant form of incitement to genocide.^[9]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kronfeldner, Maria E., ed. (2021). The Routledge handbook of dehumanization. Routledge handbooks in philosophy. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-58815-8.
^ Haslam, Nick (2006). "Dehumanization: An Integrative Review". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 10 (3): 252–264. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_4. PMID 16859440. S2CID 18142674. Archived from the original on 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2019-06-22 – via Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
^ ^a ^b ^c Haslam, Nick; Loughnan, Steve (3 January 2014). "Dehumanization and Infrahumanization". Annual Review of Psychology. 65 (1): 399–423. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115045. PMID 23808915.
^ Spens, Christiana (2014-09-01). "The Theatre of Cruelty: Dehumanization, Objectification & Abu Ghraib". Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations. 5 (3). doi:10.15664/jtr.946 (inactive 11 July 2025). hdl:10023/5611. ISSN 2516-3159.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
^ de Ruiter, Adrienne (2024). Dehumanisation in the global migration crisis (1 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-889340-0.
^ Enge, Erik (2015). Dehumanization as the Central Prerequisite for Slavery. GRIN Verlag. p. 3. ISBN 9783668027107.
^ Haslam, Nick; Loughnan, Steve (2014). "Dehumanization and infrahumanization". Annual Review of Psychology. 65: 399–423. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115045. ISSN 1545-2085. PMID 23808915.
^ Bruneau, Emile; Kteily, Nour (2017-01-01). "The enemy as animal: Symmetric dehumanization during asymmetric warfare". PLOS ONE. 12 (7): e0181422. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1281422B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0181422. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 5528981. PMID 28746412.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
^ Gordon, Gregory S. (2017). Atrocity Speech Law: Foundation, Fragmentation, Fruition. Oxford University Press. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-19-061270-2.