Instrumentality and the denial of personhood: The social psychology of objectifying others
Type de matériel :
94
Although recent social psychological objectification research has focused on men sexually objectifying women, there are numerous other domains and methods by which people treat others as objects. This paper incorporates Nussbaum’s (1995) delineation of seven ways to objectify a person with Holland and Haslam’s (2013) conceptualization of objectification as treating another person as a thing and denying the other’s personhood. Four of the methods of objectification that Nussbaum (1995) describes – instrumentalization, fungibility, violability, and ownership – amount to treating another person as a thing, whereas the other three – denial of autonomy, of agency, and of subjective experience – are means of denying personhood. We review social psychological research that pertains to each of these seven means of objectification and show that objectification is distinguishable from closely related social psychological phenomena to the extent that 1) agents treat others as instrumental tools to achieve their own ends, and 2) agents deny others at least one aspect of personhood. This review not only includes research on interpersonal treatment, but intergroup treatment and institutional treatment as well.
Réseaux sociaux