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Spontaneous usage of shared humanity arguments

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Abstract

We examined when and why individuals spontaneously used shared humanity arguments. Participants (undergraduate college students in the U.S. around 20 years of age) writing in support (vs. non-support) of gays and lesbians (Study 1), writing in support of a marginalized (vs. dominant) group (Study 2), and writing in support of a marginalized group for an audience who disagrees (vs. agrees) with one’s argument (Study 3) showed greater usage of shared humanity arguments. In Study 4, we assessed shared humanity arguments when writing in support of refugees in the U.S. along with measures of motivation to control prejudiced reactions, fear of negative evaluation, and social desirability (self-deceptive enhancement, impression management). The results showed that only fear of negative evaluation and self-deceptive enhancement predicted usage of shared humanity arguments.

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Notes

  1. Because of an empty cell, we were unable to conduct a logistic regression with sex of participant and condition as predictors of use of humanity. However, due to the empty cell we conducted a Fisher’s exact test. The result was significant (p < .001), and the unadjusted odds ratio was .37, 95% CI [.304, .440]. We conducted a logistic regression with the word count of participants’ argument predicting use of shared humanity (0 = no mention, 1 = mention), Hosmer–Lemeshow X2(8, N = 242) = 6.04, p = .643, Nagelkerke R2 = .05. Word count (B = .01, SE = .003, p = .005, odds ratio = 1.01, 95% CI [1.00, 1.02]) was significant.

  2. We conducted a logistic regression with condition (0 = dominant, 1 = marginalized), sex of participant (0 = male, 1 = female), religious affiliation (0 = not affiliated, 1 = affiliated), and word count predicting use of shared humanity (0 = no mention, 1 = mention), Hosmer–Lemeshow X2(8, N = 151) = 4.45, p = .815, Nagelkerke R2 = .35. Condition (B = 3.25, SE = .76, p < .001, odds ratio = 25.80, 95% CI [5.85, 113.83]) was significant while sex of participant (B = .33, SE = .54, p = .539, odds ratio = 1.39, 95% CI [.484, 4.02]), religious affiliation (B = .42, SE = .66, p = .524, odds ratio = 1.52, 95% CI [.419, 5.52]), and word count (B = .003, SE = .01, p = .478, odds ratio = 1.00, 95% CI [.994, 1.01]) were not.

  3. We conducted a logistic regression with condition (0 = agree, 1 = disagree), sex of participant (0 = male, 1 = female), religious affiliation (0 = not affiliated, 1 = affiliated), and word count predicting use of shared humanity (0 = no mention, 1 = mention), Hosmer–Lemeshow X2(8, N = 141) = 4.56, p = .803, Nagelkerke R2 = .04. Condition (B = .66, SE = .36, p = .063, odds ratio = 1.94, 95% CI [.965, 3.90]) was marginally significant while sex of participant (B = .03, SE = .38, p = .937, odds ratio = 1.03, 95% CI [.491, 2.16]), religious affiliation (B = .07, SE = .40, p = .870, odds ratio = 1.07, 95% CI [.488, 2.34]), and word count (B = -.01, SE = .01, p = .416, odds ratio = 0.99, 95% CI [.978, 1.01]) were not.

  4. Both fear of negative evaluation and self-deceptive enhancement showed positive, but nonsignificant, correlations with shared humanity usage. These two variables also showed a significant negative relationship with one another. In the multiple regression these two variables emerged as significant predictors. The likely cause is that these two variables are reciprocal, or mutual, suppressor variables—suppressing outcome-irrelevant variation of one another and thereby improving predictive power (Pandey and Elliot 2010). Removing one or the other of these two variables results in a lower beta for the other.

    Due to a large percentage of missing data (14.4%) regarding participants’ religious affiliation, we did not include this variable in the model. We did conduct another regression including sex of participant (0 = male, 1 = female) and word count, Hosmer–Lemeshow X2(8, N = 132) = 8.98, p = .344, Nagelkerke R2 = .11. Sex of participant (B = .02, SE = .50, p = .961, odds ratio = 1.02, 95% CI [.386, 2.72]) and word count (B = .01, SE = .01, p = .353, odds ratio = 1.01, 95% CI [.994, 1.02]) were not significant predictors of use of shared humanity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY, 40508, USA

    Iva Katzarska-Miller

  2. Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, TX, 75429, USA

    Stephen Reysen

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  1. Iva Katzarska-Miller
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Correspondence to Iva Katzarska-Miller.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (Texas A&M University-Commerce Study 1 (#1077) and Studies 2 and 4 (#1250); Transylvania University Study 3 (#2016–01)) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the studies.

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Katzarska-Miller, I., Reysen, S. Spontaneous usage of shared humanity arguments. Curr Psychol 41, 369–378 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00583-5

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