Psychology Today | 10.05.2026 02:42
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.
