Humanness Is Not Always Positive: Automatic Associations between Incivilities and Human Symbols

Laura Rodríguez-Gómez, Naira Delgado, Verónica Betancor, Xing Jie Chen-Xia and Armando Rodríguez-Pérez
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Laura Rodríguez-Gómez: Department of Cognitive, Social and Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of La Laguna, 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
Naira Delgado: Department of Cognitive, Social and Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of La Laguna, 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
Verónica Betancor: Department of Cognitive, Social and Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of La Laguna, 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
Xing Jie Chen-Xia: Department of Cognitive, Social and Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of La Laguna, 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
Armando Rodríguez-Pérez: Department of Cognitive, Social and Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of La Laguna, 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: Uncivil behavior involves an attack on social norms related to the protection of public property and respect for community life. However, at the same time, the low-frequency and relatively low-intensity damage caused by most of these behaviors could lead to incivilities being considered a typically human action. The purpose of this set of studies is to examine the automatic associations that people establish between humanness and both civic and uncivil behaviors. Across three studies, uncivil behaviors were more strongly associated with human pictures than animal pictures (study 1) and with human-related words than animal-related words (study 2). We replicated study 2 with uncivil behaviors that do not prime graphically human beings (study 3). Overall, our results showed that uncivil behaviors and civic behaviors were clearly associated with human concepts. Our findings have direct implications for the conceptualization of humanness and its denial.

Keywords: civic behavior; uncivil behavior; dehumanization; automatic associations; SC-IAT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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