Effect of socail categorization on dehumanization

In this research, it is aimed to examine dehumanisation of Syrians by the host society members in Turkey. Syrians migrated to Turkey, because of the civil war in Syria broke out in 2011, and relatively positive attitudes towards Syrians in those days turned out to be negative in time. One aspect of these negative attitudes can be observed in attribution of humanness to Syrians. Dehumanization is the denial of human nature and human uniqueness of out-group members. Relying on this conceptualisation, a research question was proposed as "How and to what extent are the Syrian immigrants dehumanized, and which variables do have impact on this process?". Consequently, the effects of participants' gender, age, political orientation, religiosity in addition to ethnic identification and national identification (nationalism) were examined via experimental research. Thus, 5 (status of Syrian: male student, male worker, female student, female worker and control group) x 2 (gender of participants: woman and man) ANOVA design was applied. The sample of the research consisted of students who registered to the Abant İzzet Baysal University. The mean of age was 21.37 (SD= 2.14). A total of 143 participants (72 women, 71 men) were recruited. The social category membership (worker versus student, woman versus man) of the Syrian person living in Turkey were manipulated through vignettes. Findings showed that political orientation, religiosity and nationalism as well as identification with ethnicity did affect the process of dehumanization of the Syrian person and Syrians as a group. When a profile of a Syrian student was presented to participants in the manipulation condition, dehumanisation reduced significantly. Besides, religiosity and political orientation moderated the effect of nationalism on animalistic dehumanization of Syrians as a group. In other words, the participants with nationalist as well as liberalist political orientations dehumanized Syrians as a group more than the nationalists and conservatives on the animalistic dimension. Moreover, the participants with higher level of nationalism and religiosity dehumanized Syrians as a group more than those with the lower level of nationalism and religiosity. In addition, attributing human characteristics to the Syrian person and Syrians as a group was differentiated on both positive and negative traits. In addition, the participants attributed negative traits less to both Syrian person and Syrians as a group compared to positive traits. Key words: Dehumanization, multiple social categorisation, national and ethnic identification, religiosity, political orientation