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Social Psychology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social Psychology

Effects Of Dehumanization And Disgust-Eliciting Language On Attitudes Toward Immigration: A Sentiment Analysis Of Twitter Data, Katherine S. Wahrer, Cynthia J. Najdowski, John V. Passarelli Jan 2024

Effects Of Dehumanization And Disgust-Eliciting Language On Attitudes Toward Immigration: A Sentiment Analysis Of Twitter Data, Katherine S. Wahrer, Cynthia J. Najdowski, John V. Passarelli

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Attitudes towards immigration have been shown to be driven by dehumanization and disgust. The more people dehumanize immigrants and the more disgusted they feel, the more negative attitudes they tend to have toward immigrants. However, little is known about how exposure to social media content that links dehumanization, disgust, and immigration influences users’ attitudes on this issue. This is important to consider because the majority of adults in the United States are on social media. We used Twitter data, machine learning, and sentiment analysis to investigate whether exposure to dehumanizing or disgust-eliciting tweets about immigration impacts users’ own sentiment toward …


An Exploratory Study Of Anti-Black Racism In Social Media Behavior Intentions: Effects Of Political Orientation And Motivation To Control Prejudice, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Samantha A. Wilcox, Justine K. Brace, Melissa Anderson Jan 2024

An Exploratory Study Of Anti-Black Racism In Social Media Behavior Intentions: Effects Of Political Orientation And Motivation To Control Prejudice, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Samantha A. Wilcox, Justine K. Brace, Melissa Anderson

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Considering the widespread prevalence of racist content and opinions on social media, there is a pressing need to understand how users react to such content in ways that might lead them to be drawn into echo chambers of racism, hate speech, and potentially even violence. We conducted an online study to investigate how two individual differences—political orientation and motivation to control prejudice (MCP)—may predispose people to accept anti-Black racism expressed in social media messages. Non-Black participants viewed racist and egalitarian mock social media posts and reported how likely they would be to respond favorably and/or engage in supportive social media …