Alexander Landry

All Publications

• Need for Chaos and Dehumanization are Robustly Associated with Support for Partisan Violence, While Political Measures are Not POLITICAL BEHAVIOR Landry, A. P., Druckman, J. N., Willer, R. 2024

  View details for DOI 10.1007/s11109-024-09934-w

  View details for Web of Science ID 001218872000001

• Intergroup psychological interventions: The motivational challenge. The American psychologist Landry, A. P., Halperin, E. 2023

  Abstract

  Social scientists have increasingly applied insights from descriptive research to develop psychological interventions aimed at improving intergroup relations. These interventions have achieved marked success-reducing prejudicial attitudes, fostering support for conciliatory social policies, and promoting peacebuilding behaviors. At the same time, intergroup conflict continues to rage in part because individuals often lack motivation to engage with these promising interventions. We take a step toward addressing this issue by developing a framework of approaches for delivering interventions to an unmotivated target audience. Along with (a) directly motivating targets by increasing their values and expectancies for addressing intergroup conflict, researchers can deliver interventions by (b) satisfying other psychological motivations of the target audience, (c) providing an instrumental benefit for engaging with the intervention, (d) embedding the intervention in a hedonically captivating medium, or (e) bypassing motivational barriers entirely by delivering the intervention outside of targets' conscious awareness. We define each approach and use illustrative examples to organize them into a conceptual framework before concluding with implications and future directions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

  View details for DOI 10.1037/amp0001289

  View details for PubMedID 38059975

• Harnessing dehumanization theory, modern media, and an intervention tournament to reduce support for retributive war crimes JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Landry, A. P., Fincher, K., Barr, N., Brosowsky, N. P., Protzko, J., Ariely, D., Seli, P. 2024; 111

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104567

  View details for Web of Science ID 001129136800001

• Intergroup conflict as contest and disease. Trends in cognitive sciences Halevy, N., Landry, A. P. 2023

  Abstract

  Intergroup conflict has been conceptualized as a strategic interaction (conflict-as-contest) and separately as a pathological condition (conflict-as-disease). We highlight how insights and tools from the former perspective can potentially inform the latter. Harnessing the science of strategic decision-making can facilitate the development of novel approaches for mitigating intergroup conflict.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2023.10.004

  View details for PubMedID 37903703

• Reducing Explicit Blatant Dehumanization by Correcting Exaggerated Meta-Perceptions SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PERSONALITY SCIENCE Landry, A. P., Schooler, J. W., Willer, R., Seli, P. 2022

  View details for DOI 10.1177/19485506221099146

  View details for Web of Science ID 000822456100001

• Defining dehumanization broadly does not mean including everything. Trends in cognitive sciences Kteily, N. S., Landry, A. P. 2022

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2022.04.003

  View details for PubMedID 35577720

• Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges. Trends in cognitive sciences Kteily, N. S., Landry, A. P. 1800

  Abstract

  Despite our many differences, one superordinate category we all belong to is 'humans'. To strip away or overlook others' humanity, then, is to mark them as 'other' and, typically, 'less than'. We review growing evidence revealing how and why we subtly disregard the humanity of those around us. We then highlight new research suggesting that we continue to blatantly dehumanize certain groups, overtly likening them to animals, with important implications for intergroup hostility. We discuss advances in understanding the experience of being dehumanized and novel interventions to mitigate dehumanization, address the conceptual boundaries of dehumanization, and consider recent accounts challenging the importance of dehumanization and its role in intergroup violence. Finally, we present an agenda of outstanding questions to propel dehumanization research forward.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2021.12.003

  View details for PubMedID 35042655

• Dehumanization and mass violence: A study of mental state language in Nazi propaganda (1927-1945). PloS one Landry, A. P., Orr, R. I., Mere, K. 2022; 17 (11): e0274957

  Abstract

  Dehumanization is frequently cited as a precursor to mass violence, but quantitative support for this notion is scarce. The present work provides such support by examining the dehumanization of Jews in Nazi propaganda. Our linguistic analysis suggests that Jews were progressively denied the capacity for fundamentally human mental experiences leading up to the Holocaust. Given that the recognition of another's mental experience promotes moral concern, these results are consistent with the theory that dehumanization facilitates violence by disengaging moral concern. However, after the onset of the Holocaust, our results suggest that Jews were attributed a greater capacity for agentic mental states. We speculate this may reflect a process of demonization in which Nazi propagandists portrayed the Jews as highly capable of planning and intentionality while nonetheless possessing a subhuman moral character. These suggestive results paint a nuanced portrait of the temporal dynamics of dehumanization during the Holocaust and provide impetus for further empirical scrutiny of dehumanization in ecologically valid contexts.

  View details for DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0274957

  View details for PubMedID 36350823