One explanation for the Nazi’s success as a political force
in Germany during the early 1900’s, has been put down to their mastery of media
as an effective channel of political propaganda. They used a vast array of tactics
and different forms media to promote their extreme prejudiced views, and
somehow managed to convince millions of people that their twisted beliefs was
what was right for Germany.
This poster uses powerful imagery to promote a negative view
of Jewish people, in this case likening Jews to Rats. This tactic promotes
dehumanisation of Jewish people, promoting Jews as ‘sub-human’ and like vermin who
are infecting the ‘cleanliness’ and ‘Purity’ of Germany. This, in turn, lead to
an in-group and out-group mentality, and allowed the Nazi’s to convincingly
persuade German citizens that Jewish people should be held accountable for the
economic downfall of Germany after WW1, and deserved to suffer horrific
consequences for it.
The negative impacts of dehumanisation on individual’s views
of a group of people was clearly shown in Esses, Veenvliet, Hodson & Mihic’s (2008) study
which looked at the effect of dehumanisation of refugee’s in Canadian media. In
Esses, Veenvliet, Hodson & Mihic’s (2008) study participants were randomly assigned
to read one of two editorials about Canada’s refugee policy, both of which
talked about the high cost of Canada’s current refugee policy. However, one of the
editorials went on to dehumanise refugees by describing them as immoral
individuals who are trying to cheat the system. Participants Emotions and
attitudes toward refugees were then assessed. Results showed that those who had
been exposed to the dehumanising views of immigrants in the editorial they read
showed greater contempt and lack of admiration for refuges, which in turn lead
to less favourable attitudes toward the group and less support for the current
refugee policy.
Referencs:
Esses, V. M., Veenvliet, S., Hodson, G., & Mihic, L.
(2008). Justice, morality, and the dehumanization of refugees. Social Justice
Research, 21(1), 4-25.
* Just as a side point, when researching for this week I came
across a current website still promoting anti-Semitism which uses an array of
persuasive techniques, one of which suggests that those who are ‘awake’ to the
devilish ways of the Jews hold the ‘critical thinking skills’ that the majority
of society are not blessed with, therefore these incredibly intelligent
individuals should pull together to stop the Jews once and for all. I actually
couldn’t believe there are people out there who still think like this.
Chilling. I would expect dehumanization (or lies or even making salient negative attributes of individuals, even if we share these attributes ourselves) would lead to more negative attitudes towards these individuals. But it is creepy how quickly these things can take hold--especially in situations where people may feel their our own well-being is jeopardized. Indeed, I would predict that such dehumanization is made easier by pointing out a participants weaknesses prior to dehumanizing a third party.
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