Few topics have been quite so polarizing over the years as immigration, with the issue tending to divide the political spectrum between liberals who support it, and conservatives who do not.  New research from the University of Oregon suggests there may be other ways we can predict who might be opposed to immigration.

“This study investigates how treating immigrants as less than human is associated with a range of characteristics largely unexplored by prior research,” the researchers say. “We demonstrate that dehumanization manifests in a range of new characteristics, such as policy beliefs and how people talk.”

The researchers gathered volunteers from across the political spectrum, and found a surprisingly large number of the American population could be class as ‘dehumanizers’, and while the study focused primarily on immigration via the southern border of the US, the authors believe it applies equally to migrants from wherever in the world.

Dehumanizing migrants

The researchers wanted to go beyond well-trodden areas, such as hatred towards outside groups, or simple racism, and try and find other factors that may underline someone’s prejudice.  They gave several hundred volunteers a series of questions that involved scenarios involving either a lone immigrant, or an immigrant with a child that was caught entering the country illegally.  The questions included how much jail time the illegal immigrants should face, with the volunteers asked to explain their judgments.

The participants were also quizzed on a range of other social, demographic, and psychological issues.  The researchers were especially looking for the use of impersonal pronouns, words linked with power, and those associated with emotion.  For instance, dehumanizers would often speak from a position of power, and discuss immigrants in negative and impersonal terms.

The researchers believe that words are valuable insights into the psyche of people, and unveil the potentially widespread dehumanization that exists in our discourse around immigration.

Social harm

The next task was to determine how this dehumanization was linked to social harms, such as support for the death penalty, gun ownership or harsh raids on immigrants.  If participants supported these things, they tended to dehumanize the immigrants more, while also self-identifying as conservatives.  This group also supported lengthy jail time for any illegal imigrants.

“The support for social harms, particularly about guns and the death penalty, are seemingly unrelated to how one should treat an immigrant, but they matter in a large way,” the researchers say. “We can move forward by acknowledging our blind spots as individuals.”

The work represents part of a wider body of work that aims to understand the processes and rationale by which immigrants are dehumanized by society.

“We hope that interdisciplinary social science research can inform how vulnerable populations are treated, with the goal of mitigating cruelty around the world,” the researchers conclude.