Bleeding-Heart Liberals and Hard-Hearted Conservatives: Subtle Political Dehumanization Through Differential Attributions of Human Nature and Human Uniqueness Traits

Both liberals and conservatives express prejudice and intolerance towards each other (Chambers, Schlenker, & Collisson, 2013; Crawford & Pilanski, 2013; Wetherell, Brandt, & Reyna, 2013), and like other forms of prejudice, these attitudes are likely linked to stereotyped beliefs about these political groups (Fiske & Taylor, 2008). It is unsurprising then that American political discourse is saturated with epithets steeped in stereotypes: latte liberals, fat cats, bleeding hearts, and rednecks. In this paper, we attempt to understand the content of political stereotypes in the U. S., and how these stereotypes function to dehumanize one’s political opponents.

Classic stereotype content research paid little attention to the content of political stereotypes, focusing instead primarily on national and ethnic groups, and gender stereotypes (Allport, 1954; Eagly & Mladinic, 1989; Karlins, Coffman, & Walters, 1969; Katz & Braly, 1933). The scant extant research clearly indicates that people have different beliefs about liberals and conservatives. For instance, Udolf (1973) used an adjective checklist methodology to identify traits most strongly associated with liberals (e.g., young, sensitive, emotional) and conservatives (e.g., conventional, strict, rigid) in the U.S. These beliefs were consensual—in other words, liberal and conservative stereotypes were shared across the political spectrum. More recently, Graham, Nosek, and Haidt (2012) examined the moral stereotypes of U. S. liberals and conservatives through the perspective of Moral Foundations Theory (see Graham et al., 2013). They found that regardless of political orientation, people more strongly associated liberals with moral foundations concerning care for individuals (especially victimized individuals) and conservatives with moral foundations concerning the health and integrity of their ingroup.

While Graham et al.’s (2012) work provides an important initial step in placing political stereotypes into a well-established theoretical framework, their studies identified moral judgments associated with typical liberals and conservatives rather than the trait attributions often examined in stereotype content research (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002; Katz & Braly, 1933). Dehumanization theory (Haslam, 2006; Haslam, Loughnan, Kashima, & Bain, 2009) presents one promising complementary theoretical perspective to examine political stereotype content via the traits attributed to liberals and conservatives. According to dehumanization theory, people dehumanize others along two separate dimensions of humanness: human nature and human uniqueness. Human nature (HN) encompasses traits that are seen as essential and fundamental to human beings (e.g., friendly, impatient). In contrast, human uniqueness (HU) entails traits that are seen as unique and distinctive to human beings, separating us from non-human animals (e.g., polite, shallow). Mechanistic dehumanization involves denying HN traits (or attributing an excess of HU traits) to groups, thereby characterizing them as unemotional, cold, and rigid, and likening them to robots, automatons, and machines. On the other hand, animalistic dehumanization involves denying HU traits (or attributing an excess of HN traits) to groups, thereby characterizing them as overly emotional, instinctual and lacking culture, and likening them to lower forms of animal life or children (Bain, Park, Kwok, & Haslam, 2009; Haslam, 2006; Haslam et al., 2009).

Recent evidence supports this two-dimensional model of dehumanization. For example, Loughnan, Haslam, and Kashima (2009) found that bogus social groups described as low in HN were more strongly associated with HU traits and with machines than were bogus groups described as low in HU; conversely, bogus groups described as low in HU were more strongly associated with HN traits and animals than were groups described as low in HN. Using both explicit and implicit measures, Loughnan and Haslam (2007) found that people more strongly associated attributes related to artists (e.g., easel, paintbrush) with HN traits than with HU traits, and with types of animals than with types of machines. The opposite pattern held for attributes related to businesspeople (e.g., briefcase, boardroom). Thus, mechanistic and animalistic dehumanization are forms of dehumanization by which people differentially attribute more of one type of humanness to one group than to another (or alternatively, more of one type of trait than another to a particular group; e.g., more HN than HU traits to liberals).

Haslam et al. (2009) argue that differential attributions of HN and HU traits can also capture the stereotype content of particular social groups. Consistent with this argument, several recent studies have shown that HN qualities are more strongly associated with psychology majors, women, and Australians than with medical students, men, and Chinese people, respectively (Bain et al., 2009; Bain, Haslam, de Souza, & Kashima, 2006; Goldenberg, Heflick, Vaes, Motyl, & Greenberg, 2009). In these studies, stereotypes of women and Australians were consensual across both men and women, and Australian and Chinese participants. Importantly, these differential attributions do not necessarily involve hostility towards the target group (Bain et al., 2009). Indeed, many of these comparisons are in the absence of strong intergroup hostilities (e.g., women and men; psychology and medical students), which may explain why these beliefs are oftentimes shared across groups (e.g., Bain et al., 2006; Graham et al., 2012).

Further, instead of universally attributing outgroups with less humanness, these subtle forms of dehumanization can also involve attributing an excess of certain types of humanness to outgroups. For example, Bain et al. (2009) found that whereas Australians attributed greater HU to Chinese targets, Chinese attributed greater HN to Australian targets. Thus, subtle mechanistic and animalistic dehumanization processes need not necessarily involve universally attributing less humanness to outgroups—instead, some outgroups may be attributed excessive levels of certain traits as a way to perpetuate group stereotypes and maintain positive group distinctiveness (Bain et al., 2009; Bain, Haslam, DeSouza, & Kashima, 2008).

We suggest that human nature and human uniqueness traits also differentially capture the content of liberal and conservative stereotypes, respectively. Common liberal stereotypes such as the “bleeding heart”, as well as many of the qualities identified in empirical studies of liberal stereotypes in the U.S. (e.g., young, emotional, compassionate, sensitive, quick-acting; Graham et al., 2012; Udolf, 1973), reflect human nature qualities (e.g., passionate, trusting). In contrast, popular notions of conservatives as “rigid” or “self-interested”, as well as qualities identified by empirical studies in the U. S. (e.g., conventional, strict, rigid; Carney, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2008; Udolf, 1973) reflect qualities unique to humans (e.g., cold, organized). Moreover, theoretical perspectives that characterize liberals and conservatives as respectively applying nurturant versus strict parenting styles (Lakoff, 2002) and approach versus inhibition/avoidance motives (Janoff-Bulman, 2009) to their political attitudes are also generally consistent both with the “bleeding heart” liberal and “hard-hearted” conservative stereotypes and with HN and HU traits, respectively. Thus, based on popular notions as well as theory and research in political psychology, we expect Americans to associate liberals with HN traits and conservatives with HU traits.

As mentioned above, people subtly dehumanize groups even towards whom they feel little hostility. This is clearly not the case across the ideological divide—liberals and conservatives readily express prejudice and intolerance towards each other (see Brandt, Reyna, Chambers, Crawford, & Wetherell, in press for a review). Thus, in addition to observing political stereotypes shared across the political spectrum, we might also expect antipathy towards one’s political opponents to motivate subtle dehumanization tendencies. We therefore expected that conservatives’ tendency to attribute HN traits to liberals would be motivated by antipathy towards liberals, and that liberals’ tendency to attribute HU traits to conservatives would be motivated by antipathy towards conservatives. Dehumanization effects are hypothesized to occur independent of trait valence (e.g., Bain et al., 2009). Of course, given the intense hostility between liberals and conservatives in the United States and deepening political polarization (Layman & Carsey, 2002), however, we might anticipate valence effects on liberals’ and conservatives’ trait ratings of themselves and each other. We therefore varied the valence of the assessed traits to determine whether valence moderated the expected interaction between target ideology (i.e., liberal vs. conservative) and humanness type (i.e., HN vs. HU).

Finally, any analysis of stereotype content should recognize the warmth and competence dimensions that research on the stereotype content model (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002) has shown are fundamental to social perceptions. According to the SCM, the warmth dimension captures traits associated with the perceived intent of a group, whereas the competence dimension captures traits associated with the perceived ability of a group (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007). Haslam et al. (2009) argue that the warmth and competence dimensions are not redundant with human nature and human uniqueness dimensions, respectively. For instance, whereas warmth and competence generally reflect positive traits, HN and HU reflect both positive and negative traits. Furthermore, whereas Agreeableness corresponds to warmth and Conscientiousness to competence, HN encapsulates Openness, Extraversion and Neuroticism, whereas HU reflects both Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Haslam, Bain, Douge, Lee, & Bastian, 2005). Thus, for the purposes of contrasting the expected differential attribution of HN and HU traits with a well-validated model of stereotype content, we also examined people’s differential attributions of warmth and competence to liberals and conservatives.

Method

Results

Discussion

This study provides the first evidence that differential attributions of human nature and human uniqueness traits capture the content of Americans’ stereotypes about liberals and conservatives, respectively. A robust Target Ideology × Trait interaction indicated that as predicted, people assigned more human nature (HN) traits to liberals than to conservatives, and more human uniqueness (HU) traits to conservatives than to liberals. Alternatively, people assigned more HN than HU traits to liberals, and more HU than HN traits to conservatives. This interaction was not moderated by perceiver ideology, indicating that across the political spectrum, HN and HU traits generally reflect the stereotype content of the U.S. political left and right, respectively.

That said, an unexpected Perceiver Ideology × Target Ideology × Trait × Valence interaction indicated that the valence of the trait mattered when liberals and conservatives made ingroup and outgroup trait associations. Generally speaking, both liberals and conservatives more strongly associated their ingroup with stereotype-consistent positive traits, and their outgroup with stereotype-consistent negative traits. Whereas liberals more strongly associated positive traits with themselves than with conservatives regardless of humanness type, this difference was especially pronounced on positive HN traits. Similarly, conservatives more strongly associated positive HU traits with themselves than with liberals, but did not make differential attributions on (counter-stereotypical) positive HN traits. Thus, consistent with expectations from social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), both liberals and conservatives appear to engage in social creativity strategies towards positive distinctiveness, seeing their own group as more strongly embodying traits central to the group identity than their outgroup. Such stereotype-consistent trait differentiation also occurred on negative traits. Specifically, whereas liberals more strongly associated negative traits with conservatives than with liberals regardless of humanness type, this difference was especially pronounced on negative HU traits. Similarly, conservatives more strongly associated negative HN traits with liberals than with conservatives, but did not make differential attributions on (counter-stereotypical) negative HU traits.

Examining trait attribution comparisons, people across the political spectrum more strongly attributed HN than HU traits to liberals, regardless of trait valence. It is unsurprising that liberals assigned more HN than HU traits to themselves, given that they (along with the entire sample) defined humanness more in terms of human nature than human uniqueness. The greater attribution of HU than HN traits to conservatives depended on the ideology of the perceiver and trait valence. Whereas liberals rated conservatives equally low in positive HU and HN traits, they rated them far higher in negative HU than HN traits; thus, these findings suggest that liberals believe conservatives have an excess of negative HU traits, both overall and compared to themselves. Conservatives, however, were reluctant to attribute greater HU than HN traits to their own group, regardless of valence, likely because they defined humanness more in terms of HN than HU.

The mediation analyses suggest that outgroup derogration, not ingroup favoritism, motivates subtle forms of dehumanization among both liberals and conservatives. Outgroup antipathy (but not ingroup liking) mediated the relationship between liberalism and the mechanistic dehumanization of conservatives, operationalized as the tendency to assign more negative HU than HN traits to conservatives. Given that liberals define humanness more so in terms of HN than HU traits, this greater attribution of negative HU than HN traits to conservatives appears especially malicious.

Further, outgroup antipathy (but not ingroup liking) mediated the relationship between conservatism and the animalistic dehumanization of liberals. One of the more interesting findings in this study is that animalistic dehumanization of liberals occurred through more strongly associating liberals with positive, not negative, HN than HU traits. It does not appear that conservatives believed liberals have a deficit in positive HU traits, as their average rating of liberals on positive HU traits (M = 3.68, SD = .85) is above the midpoint of the 6-point scale. Instead, this finding suggests that conservatives believe liberals have an excess of positive HN traits. Indeed, as seen in Table 4, conservatives rate liberals as slightly but not significantly higher in positive HN traits than they do themselves. To investigate this idea further, we asked a separate sample of thirty-seven self-identified conservatives (recruited from MTurk) to describe the types of liberals they think are “childlike and emotional” and “cold and rigid”. Interestingly, these conservatives had little trouble listing a host of childlike and emotional liberals (e.g., young people; environmentalists; supporters of generous welfare policies), and several volunteered that “all liberals” were childlike and emotional. In contrast, while some conservatives indicated that liberal elites or bureaucrats were cold and rigid, several volunteered that liberals are actually not cold and rigid, and if anything, are “warm to a fault”. These qualitative responses are consistent with an interpretation of our findings suggesting that conservatives think liberals suffer from an excess of positive HN traits, and that prejudice against liberals drives this belief (see Figure 2).

These findings also suggest that HN and HU traits reflect stereotype content in a different manner than the warmth and competence dimensions more frequently used in stereotype content research (Fiske et al., 2002). If warmth and competence are simply redundant with HN and HU, respectively, then people should more strongly associate liberals with warmth and conservatives with competence. This was not the case, however—whereas liberals were rated higher in warmth than were conservatives, liberals and conservatives were rated equally high in competence (and alternatively, conservatives were rated higher in competence than warmth, but liberals were rated equally high in warmth and competence). Thus, the warmth and competence dimensions fail to capture the distinct stereotype portraits of U.S. liberals and conservatives that were reflected in differential attributions of human nature and human uniqueness traits, respectively. This study therefore provides additional evidence (see also Haslam et al., 2009) that humanness ratings provide value for understanding stereotype content beyond warmth-competence ratings that should be explored in future research. The fact that outgroup antipathy motivated differential attributions of humanness traits further suggests the importance of exploring HN and HU trait associations in other intergroup contexts.

Contextual factors such as threat may lead ingroup members to dehumanize outgroup members, which allows the perpetration of inhumane and violent actions against outgroup members without moral compunction (see Goldenberg et al., 2009; McAlister, Bandura, & Owen, 2006; Motyl & Pyszczynski, 2009; Sternberg, 2003). Our results suggest that liberals and conservatives dehumanize one another, and that distinctive political stereotypes lie at the heart of such dehumanization. This political dehumanization may explain the apparent rise in demonizing rhetoric and hostility across the political divide (e.g., claims that President Obama is the “Anti-Christ”, Haidt, 2012; Pyszczynski, Henthorn, Motyl, & Gerow, 2010). Future studies could explore this possibility by examining whether activation of “bleeding heart” liberal and “hard-hearted” conservative stereotypes increases partisan polarization.

Of course, one goal of future research would be to determine how political hostility and stereotyping could be reduced. For example, individual differences in identification with all of humanity (e.g., McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012) may mitigate political dehumanization effects. Hostility-reduction interventions may use reminders of the humanness of outgroup members more generally (e.g., Motyl et al., 2011), or more specifically by emphasizing the (counter-stereotypical) human nature qualities of conservatives and uniquely human qualities of liberals. That said, research in other contexts suggests that humanness reminders may backfire, for example by increasing perpetrators’ expectations of forgiveness for wrongdoings and decreasing victims’ collective action motivations (Greenaway, Louis, & Wohl, 2012; Greenaway, Quinn, & Louis, 2011). Thus, it is possible that while common humanity reminders may reduce stereotyping and prejudice among liberals and conservatives, they may still be unwilling to cooperate with each other. Future research should explore these important questions.

These results also have implications for framing effects in political communication. For example, given the acceptance of the conservative stereotype by both liberals and moderates, it may be easier and more effective for Democratic campaigns to frame Republican opponents as unfeeling automatons than as intellectual lightweights lacking seriousness. Indeed, President Obama’s re-election campaign successfully cast his opponent Mitt Romney as an “out-of-touch fat cat”, and Obama reportedly joked that Romney was not “human enough” to get elected President (Martin & Thrush, 2012). By contrast, Republican campaigns may find it easier to frame Democratic opponents as trivial or affable to a fault (as Senator John McCain’s campaign did when it likened then-Senator Barack Obama to a celebrity during the 2008 Presidential election) rather than as cold, unfeeling, or impersonal. The fact that moderates and conservatives alike shared this liberal stereotype may make this framing strategy all the more effective.