The Primacy of Communality in Humanization

Ascribing and denying humanity has profound consequences, often leading to devastating outcomes (e.g., violence, genocide). As such, understanding what, exactly, makes “someone human” becomes imperative. In this paper, we leverage the ubiquitous Big Two dimensions of social perception (agency and communality) to examine the process of humanization. In five studies (N = 1900), we find that the “Big Two” dimensions — agency (assertiveness, competence) and communality (warmth, kindness) — predict humanization, and critically, we show the primacy of communality in this process. We find that communality takes primacy in humanization when anthropomorphizing, describing an alien species, or ascribing humanness to real-world social targets (Studies 1–3); it is only for contexts where, or targets for whom, agency is particularly relevant that agency predicts humanization (Studies 4–5). We conclude with implications for research on (de)humanization, mind-perception, and social-perception.