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
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2018Volume: 11
First Page: 65
Last Page: 76
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-11-65
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101811010065
Article History:
Received Date: 28/11/2017Revision Received Date: 03/03/2018
Acceptance Date: 02/04/2018
Electronic publication date: 24/04/2018
Collection year: 2018
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.
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.