Abstract:

As one of important psychological phenomena of human society, dehumanization—the reduced perception of person’s humanity—has been paid attention by psychologists in recent years. In the field of social psychology, four most representative theories of dehumanization are “the infrahumanization theory”, “the dual model of dehumanization”, “the stereotype content theory” and “the mind perception theory”, which have distinctive theoretical bases and predictions. The latest empirical researches mostly focus on four fields: race and ethnicity, perception of women, medical treatment and social justice. Further researches on dehumanization can be improved in the following aspects, including 1) self-humanization, 2) perspective of being dehumanized, 3) perceptions of animals and 4) objectification.

Key words: dehumanization, infrahumanization, objectification, stereotype content, mind perception