Crossing the Line: Disgust, Dehumanization, and Human Rights Violations

Abstract

What leads Americans to support human rights violations? The authors explore the role of disgust on dehumanization and support for retaliatory human rights violations, including support for torture, targeting noncombatants, and extrajudicial killing. Using a survey experiment, the authors find that American respondents are disgusted with outgroups whose behaviors violate global human rights norms. These feelings of disgust lead respondents to dehumanize these outgroups and support hypothetical human rights violations against past violators as well as noncombatants ostensibly affiliated with them. Although the experimental vignettes also triggered anger and sadness in participants, only disgust reactions consistently produced dehumanization and support for human rights violations against outgroups. The results indicate that global human rights norms delineate not only acceptable behavior toward others but also the boundaries between those deserving and undeserving of human rights protections.