When we think of dehumanization, we tend to picture the extremes: wartime propaganda, slurs, and the comparing of people to vermin. But contemporary psychology suggests something subtler and far more common. Dehumanization can be the everyday failure to imagine what another person is thinking or feeling, rooted in the same shortcuts that help us navigate a complex world (Haslam, 2006). Once a person has been reduced to a single label, the rest of who they are can disappear from view.
This way of characterizing dehumanization carries practical weight. If dehumanization is partly a cognitive lapse, rather than just an act of malice, then humanization is something we can practice and design environments to encourage.
Three Insights From Psychology
1. Labels Can Short-Circuit the Social Brain
Functional neuroimaging shows that when people view photographs of non-stigmatized social groups, the medial prefrontal cortex (a hub for thinking about others’ minds) reliably activates. But when participants viewed photographs of individuals from highly stigmatized groups, that activation was reduced, and regions associated with disgust were engaged instead (Harris & Fiske, 2006). In other words, a category label can blunt the brain process that ordinarily registers another person as a fellow human with thoughts, feelings, and a perspective. Reducing someone to a label like “criminal” or “addict” can make them, neurologically speaking, harder to see.
2. The Brain’s Default Setting Is Social
The same neuroscience that documents dehumanization also offers a hopeful counterpoint. When the mind is at rest, the so-called default mode network becomes active, and a great deal of its activity is devoted to thinking about others, their mental states, and our relationships with them (Andrews-Hanna et al., 2014). Humans are, at the neural level, built to mentalize. We even extend this tendency beyond our species, attributing minds and personalities to pets, machines, and objects when we feel motivated to connect or to make sense of the world (Epley et al., 2007).
3. Stigma and Structure, Not Biology, Drive the Failure
If our brains are wired to think about others, why do we so often fail to do so for whole groups of people? Research on stigma points to the social architecture around us: norms, status hierarchies, and institutions that mark certain groups as “less than” and obscure their inner lives (Link & Phelan, 2001). Segregation, media frames, and algorithmic feeds further limit who we encounter and how. The problem is not that humanization is hard, but that we live inside structures that make dehumanization easy.
Three Action Steps
1. Trade Categories for Three-Dimensional Stories
Decades of research show that meaningful contact across group lines reduces prejudice, especially when it allows for getting to know individuals rather than confirming stereotypes (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Narrative is an especially crucial vehicle for humanization, because when people become absorbed in a well-told story, their beliefs and evaluations shift in line with that story (Green & Brock, 2000). In conversations and in advocacy, replace single-label descriptions (“homeless,” “user”) with multidimensional accounts of people, including their roles, talents, hopes, and mistakes.
2. Use Media as a Bridge When Direct Contact Is Limited
Direct contact is not always possible, especially for groups separated by geography. Here, parasocial contact, or repeated exposure to outgroup members through television, film, podcasts, or social media, can produce measurable reductions in prejudice (Schiappa et al., 2005). A landmark field experiment in post-genocide Rwanda found that a year-long radio drama featuring inter-ethnic friendship and reconciliation shifted listeners’ perceived social norms and behaviors compared with a control program (Paluck, 2009). Seek out and elevate humanizing narratives, particularly about communities your daily life rarely intersects with.
3. Diversify Your Information Diet and Practice Perspective-Taking
Algorithmic feeds tend to deliver more of what we already engage with, narrowing our exposure to the people and perspectives already most likely to seem foreign. To counter this, follow voices from outside your usual circles, and pause to ask how would this feel if it were me? Perspective-taking exercises like this can activate the mentalizing systems that labels suppress (Harris & Fiske, 2006). Small habits of mental imagination, like picturing another person’s day, fears, and reasons, can help reset the default.
Conclusion
Dehumanization is not always an intentional act of contempt but can happen in response to social categorization. The encouraging message is that humanization is not inherently challenging but something close to the brain’s natural state. It is enabled when we make room for stories, contact, and the simple act of considering another perspective.
