Prototypicality and the impossibility of personhood

Abstract

Dehumanization, or the denial of another’s personhood has been an essential framework for understanding how individuals are compelled to acts of grievous violence, neglect, and devaluation of the Other. However, it is not clear how dehumanization is distinct from other forms distancing and devaluation. In this work, we examine how conceptions of social categories (race and gender) are constructed as a function of their distance from socially and morally valued exemplars. In Study 1, we examine how prototypical conceptions of race, gender, and dehumanization inform disparities in pain recognition and treatment. In Study 2, we establish baseline trait conceptions and examine the extent to which these concepts diverge as a function of target social category. Across two experiments we measure conceptual maps for a series of trait terms commonly used to index dehumanization, both at baseline and in reference to specific social categories. We evaluate how divergence from baseline concepts is associated with moral concern and dehumanization. In line with ethno- and andro- centric theories of prototypicality, we find that White targets are considered prototypical for superordinate categories, ‘human’, ‘men’, and ‘women’, thereby distancing all other identities within race, gender, and personhood. Moreover, we find that even when trait concepts are coherent between baseline and social category dependent contexts, non-White social categories are still dehumanized- such that personhood may be unconditional only for White peoples.