Human tendency to see non-human or even outgroups as not as complex as our own:
- Participants were asked to consider “typically dehumanized outgroups” like drug addicts or people without housing. For someone outside them, thinking about people in these groups usually does not activate regions of the brain associated with theory of mind, the ability to mental states in others.
- By simply asking whether they would like a certain vegetable, those neural regions became active just as they are with higher status outgroup members.
- The question presumes a person with preferences and desires. Desires and attitudes toward the future only exist in time: the time inhabited by that person