Why do people perceive others as less than fully human?
Professor Nick Haslam found plenty of evidence but little research or theory to guide his curiosity. Dehumanisation isn’t difficult to describe. It is humans likening other humans to animals, objects and automatons. Why such behaviour occurs at all and is so widespread is not so obvious. “I kept coming across this word dehumanisation when I was reading about topics as diverse as ethnic conflict and modern medical practice and I guess old fashioned curiosity propelled me to investigate further. I found there was not much systematic theory or research about it,” says Professor Nick Haslam, in the School of Behavioural Science. “When people study this area they tend to look at the more extreme examples such as genocides where the Tutsis were called cockroaches or the way Jews were referred to as vermin, but there are more subtle ways in which people treat others as less than human,” he says. Professor Haslam believes that the subject of dehumanisation raises the fundamental question of wh
