Infrahumanization in children: An evaluation of 70 terms relating to humanity.

Background: Research on infrahumanization has revealed that individuals attribute more secondary emotions to the in-group than to the out-group, whose capacity to experience them is denied or restricted. When this bias has been examined in children, researchers have used the same taxonomy of affective terms as that used with adults. The aim of this research is to conduct a normative study that will equip researchers with a taxonomy of humanity attributed to emotional terms specifically for children.

Methods: Three hundred and sixty-three children aged between 11 and 12 responded to several questionnaires containing a total of 70 emotional terms, evaluated in eight dimensions associated with the perception of humanity.

Results: Principal component analysis shows that children categorize implicit dimensions associated with humanity differently to adults.

Conclusions: This normative study enables the selection of graded emotional terms in humanity perceived by a child sample, in order to overcome current limitations in research on infrahumanization in children.