Dehumanisation Effects in Media Portrayals of Refugees & Asylum Seekers - A longitudinal CDA study of media discourses, neuropsychological substrates

广义上讲，非人化与某些社会群体的成员比人类更少的感知有关-例如，更接近动物，物体或自动机（Lee & Harris，2013）。这种现象在群体间冲突中起着关键作用，因为它阻碍了亲社会行为的发展，扩大了内群体和外群体成员之间的感知差距（例如，在欧盟公投之后，有人向波兰移民发出仇恨信，称他们为“害虫”）。除其他外，负面的刻板印象和偏见的存在和持续助长了非人化;最常见的是社会弱势群体和少数群体（Dovidio，1986年）。传统上，理解这些影响的努力源于社会心理学和神经科学等学科。这些领域的研究通过检查与不同人类群体成员互动过程中出现的一系列神经反应，探索了非人性化行为的社会认知基础。通过观察刺激后皮质水平的电位（即通过使用脑电图测量的ERP-参见Luck，2005）或不同脑区的血流动力学激活（使用功能磁共振成像），密切关注那些与过度概括和/或消极态度的存在有关的神经反应，以及与诸如但不限于以下因素有关的情绪关联，种族（参见Volpert等人，2012年，研究了对黑人有偏见的认知的神经基础），或社会经济背景。（例如，在Harris & Fiske，2007中，注意到处理厌恶的大脑区域被无家可归者的图像不同地激活，并且参与心理理论解释减轻了这种影响）。在大多数情况下，这些研究提供了在给定时刻的非人性化行为的快照，而不是解释它们可以进化和改变的过程（除了Harris & Fiske，2007中的一个例外-参见Amodio，2014对神经科学研究的现状回顾，重点是去人性化，偏见和偏见）。出于同样的原因，去人性化和偏见还没有被系统地研究与语言和话语实践的关系，以及强大机构（如媒体和政治领导人）的语言在公共社会想象中的作用。

Broadly speaking, dehumanisation relates to the perception of members of a certain social groupas less than human - e.g. as closer to animals, objects or automatons (Lee & Harris, 2013). Thisphenomenon plays a key role in intergroup conflict, as it hinders the development of prosocialbehaviour and enlarges the perceived gap between members of ingroups and outgroups (note forexample, the sending out of hate letters to Polish immigrants calling them "vermin" in the aftermathof the EU Referendum).Among other things, dehumanisation is facilitated by the presence and perpetuation of negativestereotypes and prejudices; most commonly of socially vulnerable outgroups and minorities(Dovidio, 1986). Efforts at understanding these effects have traditionally stemmed from disciplinessuch as social psychology and neuroscience. Studies in these areas have probed thesociocognitive bases of dehumanising behaviours by examining a range of neural responses whichemerge during interaction with members of different human groups. By observing electricalpotentials at cortical level after a stimulus is presented (i.e. through ERPs measured usingElectroencephalography -see Luck, 2005) or the hemodynamic activation of different brain areas(using fMRI), close attention is paid to those neural responses which relate to the existence ofovergeneralised and/or negative attitudes and emotional associations related to factors such as,but not limited to, race (see e.g. Volpert et al., 2012 which examines the neural substrates ofbiased perceptions towards black people), or socioeconomic background (e.g. in Harris & Fiske,2007, which notes that brain areas processing disgust are differentially activated by images ofhomeless people and that engaging theory of mind contemplations mitigates this effect).In most instances, such studies offer a snapshot of dehumanising behaviours at a given moment intime, rather than accounting for the processes whereby they can evolve and change (with anotable exception in Harris & Fiske, 2007 -see Amodio, 2014 for a state-of-things review ofneuroscientific studies focusing on dehumanisation, bias and prejudice). By the same token,dehumanisation and prejudice have not yet been systematically studied in relation to linguistic anddiscursive practices, and to the role that the language of powerful institutions (such as mediaoutlets and political leaders) has on their appearance in the public social imaginary.