The psychology of asylum and infrahumanisation.

This article could apply to any country that receives refugees, or illegal immigrants. IMO we need to take a step back, before condemning people, or treating them as less than ourselves, simply because of where they happened to be born.

There are racists and bigots everywhere in the world, but there are also many more people, (and the number is growing), that do not behave or think in this way.

When I see how refugees are treated by some, in my own country, it makes me ashamed of my own country men and women. What gives me hope, is that this attitude is dying out, and we would all do well not to revive it.

spud



http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44604.html


The psychology of asylum and infrahumanisation


Aurore Chow

Australian culture is denying immigrants and asylum seekers their humanity.

This week the evidence was all around us. On talk radio in recent days, much has been made over the Government’s decision to fund the cost of transport for relatives of asylum seekers to attend funerals in Melbourne and Sydney. The discussion turned gradually to the affirming of the supposed “evils” of multiculturalism, and the wisdom of countries who allegedly reject it.

Then, things got ugly.

2UE presenter, Chris Smith, ran a phone quiz for listeners. The prize? A book, a DVD, and movie passes. The goal? To pinpoint the number of attempted asylum seekers “being buried in Sydney this week”. The reaction to the winner? Applause and the exclamation “Fantastic!”

One might wonder, what exactly is fantastic about the tragic death of 12 fellow human beings? Some psychology researchers would argue that it was considered fantastic precisely because those 12 were not seen to be quite as human as the rest of us. That is, they had been what psychologists call “infrahumanised”.

Each of us can simultaneously belong to various social groups, be they based on gender, race, nationality, or even footy team allegiance. Research has shown that when we feel attachment to these “in-groups”, it affects the way we perceive other, dissimilar “out-groups”. Most would be familiar with terms such as stereotyping and racism, which are indeed potential intergroup processes. Infrahumanisation involves the belief that one’s own in-group embodies what it means to be “human”, while certain other out-groups do not.

The December 2010 asylum boat tragedy was just that - a tragedy. Not unlike the tragedy that occurred in the Lockyer Valley a few weeks later. But imagine the media publicly making light of flood victims. There would be outrage.

One might argue that this is because the Australian victims are closer to us - they were our friends, relatives, countrymen. It is natural that we should feel their pain more acutely. But what about the victims of the earthquake in Christchurch this week? They aren’t our countrymen. But is it imaginable that the topic of those New Zealanders who perished would be treated as light-hearted entertainment?

Some immigrants to Australia, and particularly asylum seekers who arrive by boat, are being increasingly infrahumanised by certain media outlets and some sectors of the community. Asylum seekers are being treated as pests, as a drain on Australian resources, and as a threat to the “Australian” way of life. The reason we must be wary of such a reaction is because the potential consequences of infrahumanisation are so alarming.

Researchers believe that the consequences of not seeing a social group as equally human might range from passive neglect to active harm. As Philip Goff of the Psychology Department of UCLA found, such passive consequences can include offering less help and granting less forgiveness to an infrahumanised group. Recently, Dawn DeLuca-McLean and Emanuele Castano of the New School for Social Research in New York found that members of one in-group provided less medical and mental health aid for an infrahumanised out-group who was be in need of it. This is relevant to the case of Australia, as many asylum seekers who are in need of various types of aid, may not receive it if infrahumanised.

The active harm side of infrahumanising an out-group comes into play when infrahumanisation acts as a justification for past violence. Emanuele Castano and Roger Giner-Sorolla of the University of Kent found that feelings of collective responsibility for the killing of an out-group increased infrahumanisation towards that group. That is, this mental process of infrahumanisation allows the in-group to excuse past wrongs they have committed against an out-group and to manage guilt for any harm the in-group has done to them. So not only does infrahumanisation cause discriminatory behaviour, but it allows us not to feel bad afterwards.

Finally, at its worst, infrahumanisation can turn to dehumanization, or the complete dismissal of a group from the broader human community. This allows an in-group to treat the out-group with less moral considerations than those within the human community. It is calling the Jews “rats” or the Tutsis “cockroaches”. They become perceived as a nuisance, as evil, and worst of all, as expendable.

This is not a call to stifle debate about immigration policy. A vibrant democracy should be mature enough to handle debates, even on sensitive issues. What is essential, though, in debate over our immigration policy and its practicalities, is that we not lose sight of the inherent value of all members of the human community and risk becoming the worst version of ourselves.

Aurore Chow is a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at the Australian National University. Tweet