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Abstract：
Previous work has reported that the extent to which participants dehumanized criminals by denying them uniquely human character traits such as refinement, rationality and morality predicted the severity of the punishment endorsed for them. We revisit this influential finding across six highly powered and pre-registered studies. First, we conceptually replicate the effect reported in previous work, demonstrating that our method is sensitive to detecting relationships between trait-based dehumanization and punishment should they occur. We then investigate whether the apparent relationship between trait-based dehumanization and punishment is driven by the desirability of the traits incorporated into the stimulus set, their perceived humanness, or both. To do this, we asked participants to rate the extent to which criminals possessed uniquely human traits that were either socially desirable (e.g. cultured and civilized) or socially undesirable (e.g. arrogant and bitter). Correlational and experimental evidence converge on the conclusion that apparent evidence for the relationship between trait-based dehumanization and punishment is better explained by the extent to which participants attribute socially desirable attributes to criminals rather than the extent to which they attribute uniquely human attributes. These studies cast doubt on the hypothesized causal relationship between trait-based dehumanization and harm, at least in this context.
摘要：
以前的工作报告说，参与者通过否认罪犯独特的人类性格特征，例如精致，理性和道德预测了对他们认可的惩罚的严重性。我们在六项强大且预先注册的研究中重新审视了这一有影响力的发现。首先,我们在概念上复制了以前工作中报告的效果，证明我们的方法对检测基于特征的去人性化和惩罚之间的关系很敏感。然后，我们研究了基于特征的去人性化和惩罚之间的明显关系是否由整合到刺激集中的特征的可取性驱动，他们感知到的人性，或者两者兼而有之。要做到这一点，我们要求参与者对罪犯拥有独特的人类特征的程度进行评分，这些特征在社会上是可取的（例如文化和文明）或在社会上是不可取的（例如傲慢和痛苦）。相关证据和实验证据都集中在这样的结论上，即基于特征的去人性化和惩罚之间关系的明显证据可以更好地解释为参与者将社会期望的属性归因于罪犯的程度，而不是他们将独特的人类属性归因于罪犯的程度。这些研究对基于特征的去人性化与伤害之间的假设因果关系提出了质疑，至少在这种情况下。
