RESEARCH ARTICLE


Animal, Human and Robot Attribution: Ontologization of Roma, Romanian and Chinese Groups in an Italian Sample



Monica Pivetti*, Silvia Di Battista, Milena Pesole, Antonella Di Lallo, Benedetta Ferrone, Chiara Berti
Department of Psychological Health and Territorial Sciences (Di.S.P.U.Ter.), University G. d'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara, via dei Vestini 31, 66100, Chieti Scalo, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© 2018 Pivetti et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Psychological, Health and Territorial Sciences (Di.S.P.U.Ter.), University G. d'Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara, via dei Vestini 31, 66100, Chieti Scalo, Italy; Tel/Fax: +39.0871.3556592; E-mail: m.pivetti@unich.it


Abstract

Background:

The socio-psychological ontologization approach focuses on the attribution of a different “ontology” to outgroup members, that is the attribution of animal (or natural) attributes to the outgroup, and human (or cultural) attributes to the ingroups.

Objectives:

This study aims to enrich the ontologization approach in two ways: (1) A theoretical development of the ontologization approach is proposed, by including the attribution of the essence of automata to outgroup members; (2) whether the ontologization process is also verified for the Romanian and Chinese group is investigated, whereas the ontologization process has traditionally focused on the Roma minority.

Methods:

This study explores the ontologization process of an ingroup member, a Roma, Romanian and Chinese immigrant target via the attribution of a set of six randomly ordered animal, human and robot associates to one of the four targets (N = 269). We tested the idea that devaluation of Chinese immigrants relies on a mechanistic form of ontologization, instead of an animalistic one, such as the case for the Roma and Romanian groups.

Results:

The study confirms the animalization of Roma and Romanian targets in Italy. Both groups were ontologized by attributing animal-like associates to them and denying human-like associates. The Chinese target was ontologized based on a mechanistic approach as it was attributed a more automata-like dimension than an animal or human dimension.

Conclusion:

The pattern of the results regarding the association between the Roma and Romanian outgroup and animal-status may have negative consequences for intergroup relations in terms of reduced prosocial and increased antisocial behaviours.

Keywords: Ontologization, Dehumanization, Roma immigrant, Romanian immigrant, Chinese immigrant, Mechanistic approach.