Why We Humanize Objects and Dehumanize People: The Psychology of Social Power

EP 130. Human beings experience one another through the public, social interactions we call everyday life. We navigate a complex world of connection, cooperation, attraction, approval, avoidance, and belonging—constantly weighing whether to move toward others or pull away. Every conversation, gathering, relationship, and environment subtly influences how we regulate ourselves socially and emotionally.

Attraction often begins on the surface—through appearance, tone of voice, confidence, status, or shared value systems. We choose partners, friendships, social circles, vehicles, pets, clothing, and even identities based on how they feel, how they reflect our self-image, and how they signal belonging. We naturally assign meaning to what we love. We anthropomorphize animals, cars, and even objects that provide comfort, identity, or companionship.

But on the far end of that same psychological spectrum lies a dangerous counterforce: dehumanization. When a person is mentally reduced to a label, object, threat, or outsider, empathy collapses. Indifference replaces compassion. Equality erodes. The human nervous system can move from connection to emotional distancing with astonishing speed—especially under stress, fear, tribal thinking, or perceived social threat.

This is why self-regulation, mindful awareness, and emotional intelligence are not optional skills—they are safeguards for humanity itself. When the body becomes dysregulated, the mind follows. Beliefs harden. Empathy fades. Control weakens. But when we remain centered and self-aware, we protect our capacity for compassion, restraint, perspective, and ethical action—even in high-stress, emotionally charged situations.

Being grounded in the body and aware of the mind preserves autonomy. It keeps kindness accessible. It ensures that power does not override empathy, that fear does not override reason, and that instinct does not override conscience.

This is the work of human mastery in a social world.

Take care—and walk well.

Transcript

Hi folks, to episode 130 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast, with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, Ph.D. Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at local community college.

And what we're going to be discussing today is a really powerful concept of psychology, but also one that is acknowledged in biology, in that we see things like this occur in the natural world, but it's going to be anthropomorphism. Now when we look at things that are anthropomorphically viewed, that means that we attribute human characteristics to things, to animals.

And that sort of thing brings us to a perspective where we may treat our pets like their family. Nothing wrong with that. Or maybe treat an item as if it has human-like characteristics. My vehicle has headlights, so therefore it looks almost like it has a smiley face, this sort of thing. And we'll talk about that because it's a marketing principle that's been used to sell to us. But on top of that is something that we're biologically wired to respond to. But we're also going to discuss the opposing

end of anthropomorphism, where one may elicit kindness in a person and pull at one's heartstrings. We have the extreme opposite called dehumanization. And this is something that we know that occurs in war, where much atrocity occurs, such that people

or creatures are decimated as if they're less than what they are, maybe non-sentient, or as if they are vermin, this sort of thing, and that's a very dark place to go. But they occur as a continuum, if you will, and we move through these ideas and senses and feelings of, and beliefs that are arising as a result of how we feel about things throughout our day.

armando (02:35.158)
sometimes several times a day. Some of us tend to set up tent and live there. So from that point, we'll start the discussion on the anthropomorphic and the dehumanization that occurs on a daily basis and more normative, I will say. And that's kind of uncomfortable to say, they're not normal per se to everyone, but they are common in that we see it in an exchange with people that through their worldview, tend to apply these two principles, if you will, in their day-to-day life.

To kick off this discussion, want to mention a book that I was reading that actually kind of cued me to start talking about this because

Dehumanization and anthropomorphism are aspects of the way we deal with our world day to day that are very closely tied to self regulatory skill and much of the pain that we experience sometimes can come as a result of lack of self regulation, a complete abandonment of that whenever things get really, really bad and damaging to others. And that includes other creatures as well beyond just human. And it can also be something that can encourage a great degree

of kindness and care and compassion on the further end. But the book that I was reading that I came upon by accident is called Humanish and it was written by Justin Gregg and he's a national best-selling author and he had another book and I just want to mention the title because I thought it was just peculiar but cool. If Nietzsche Were Narwhal was his prior book and

What I'd like to mention about this book is that it really does focus on anthropomorphism in people and also cross-culturally how it occurs and also how things can go really wrong whenever we no longer anthropomorphically attribute human-like characteristics in a positive way, but do so in a way where we may attribute those characteristics in a way where we may be fencing mentally with our cat because they have a

armando (04:37.29)
a pattern of behavior that resembles personality and therefore we may treat them badly and this happens a lot. But also on the farthest end, the dehumanization scale, end of the scale, wherever we start treating people as less than human and we may even attribute them such characteristics as vermin like lice or insects or things that should be decimated or cleaned out.

And those aren't uncommon perspectives, especially whenever there's conflict and war and whenever we have deferring groups of people and even whenever there's no damaging or hurting of people or anything where people are becoming lethalized or unalived, so to speak. There are these beliefs and often emotional loads that suddenly come up.

And much of that is driven by the group with which we belong or whom we want to belong to because there's value there, that acceptance. And once again, that's very closely tied to our biological need for safety and numbers, so to speak. So whenever we're discussing these two principles, we have to take into consideration that much of that is perspective, how we choose to think about things. So there's definitely a psychological lens or view that is attributed to each one of those.

Now I'm going to divert from this for moment and mention two ideas. One is called pedomorphism. And whenever we see creatures, and this is something that our biologists posit and that even we recognize in psychology, in the multiple fields of psychology that deal with how we interact with not only people, but little ones where we interact with infants, neonates, toddlers, children, and people that develop

into young adults and eventually into adolescents and adults, full-blown adults, and then eventually become our ageing population on the furthest end of the scale. We're looking at characteristics that

armando (06:39.257)
lend themselves to looking like a baby, a very baby-like. There are those that say that whenever we are young, we come into this world largely defenseless, mostly defenseless, and that at end of our lives we are that, but also that our bodies tend to resemble a more neutral shape. We tend to not have any sexual dimorphism. There is no difference between males and females whenever we're neonates. There is very little difference as we get older and the end of our lives, wherever you see two

Adults where other than a little shape here and there they look very similar very familiar In the sense that we no longer have those dimorphic differences As much as we used to they're not completely gone, but they're there in some cases are very neutral body shapes so we're looking at Morphing of the body so to speak when we get into our Reproductive years we start noticing the changes from male to female the men become much more

and more muscular, more hair on the face, women become a little softer and curvier. And as they age, as far as that goes, there is some difference that they become starkly and obviously different that even little ones that aren't necessarily sexually aware can tell the difference. So we're wired once again to recognize these differences, but also there's a very deep perspective that we develop over time as a result of what we see.

Not all of it is encultured in that we're taught there's some that is taught behavior, but most of it is Not necessarily caught either in that we see somebody else behaving that way where it's a vicarious learning experience, but rather it's a very deeply seated Program within our neurology where we have to recognize that difference now pedomorphia to get back to that is what we attribute kind of a disney-like of characteristics to

people because they have, let's say in women, they have a larger forehead, rounder forehead and larger eyes. And that makes them more attractive across not only, sexes, male to female, but also across species. Animals tend to respond better to larger eyes and rounder head. And, that is something that we see even in the small,

armando (09:01.619)
babies of animals like little tigers and, and, and dogs, have these little round characteristics and they're dopey and cute. And notice I'm saying things that are, that are almost affectionate and there is a quality that draws that out of us. Well, we get triggered to feel our little heartstrings getting tugged notes. There aren't any real heartstrings, unless you're looking at mitral valve, but we'll not talk about that. I'm not sure that that's what they meant, but as far as the emotions that are pulled, we respond to things.

emotionally based on what they look like, which means we're more apt to be kind and nurturing when we have that emotional response at the very deep biological level that tends to precede our reasoning. And even though you may see people that put on this show of being rough and tough and, and don't take crap off of nobody, male and female both, but yet whenever they're near a child or an infant or a little animal, they tend to get all soft and gooey and very affectionate. And, that is a very

example of whenever pedomorphia is at play but we can see that not only with the children and our babies but also with our adults whenever we have people that have more baby-like characteristics we say things that you know people are baby face this sort of thing which isn't a bad thing but rather it looks as if their genetics make them look perpetually younger versus their peers if they're older so to speak

So the next one, the next bit of information that we have to look at, it's called a kinder schema, kinden schema rather, and kinden schema has to do with looking baby like in the face. And this is what

researchers call this pedomorphic trait, wherever things tend to look very baby-like or child-like, but they leverage this in marketing to make things look more attractive to us at a subconscious level because of the shaping of it. Now, this is nothing new to marketing and it does have a lot to do with self-regulation because much of what's being pulled here has to do with the loss of self-control in a sense, not necessarily a psychotic loss of capacity to take care of oneself and therefore,

armando (11:08.968)
decompensating. That's not what I mean, but rather where we're more apt to respond at the emotional level, at a visceral level, without necessarily making reasonable sense as to why I'm acting this way because I'm feeling so strongly about, this is so cute. did you see that? It looks like a baby. And I'm inflecting a little bit, but that sort of digression into what we would call a more emotive response that is looking through things, two things through a lens

or perspective that's different from the typical day to day. Now, I'm going to throw a little bit of a detail in there. And this is something that Justin Gregg, the author of The Fuminish mentions, and this is something I didn't know about Conrad Lorenz. And he was very strongly affiliated with in World War II, the Nazi party. And I mentioned that lightly because he was also known for much of the theories on generalized anxiety and this sort

thing they always show him walking around in pictures wearing what the English would call wellies rubber boots with little ducks behind them but he was paying attention to how animals would imprint and he paid attention to how we behaved and felt that

And the racist ideology that was involved in that science that he was trying to launch Pointed out that certain race that he was talking about was more or less

domesticated I think is the term that was used and therefore were less apt to feel the pedomorphic heartstrings, being tugged. So therefore there was a superiority there as far as survivorship, which we know is absolute. Yes. And as far as those things go, but much of his science is still used, not necessarily the racial profiling, but rather the imprinting and much of that actually fell into marketing as well.

armando (13:10.198)
And just something to pay attention to. Now the kindin schema has to do once again with looking very baby like in the face and pietomorphy has to do with the body actually shaping in a way that it will encourage our ability to survive and get nurturance from those that we were born to. And these are important things we must pay attention to. But now back to the primary discussion that has to do with anthropomorphism, wherever we tend to attribute characteristics or human, let's

to animals, let's say cats and dogs that are our pets and many become our companions and our friends and the way they act it's cute and it warms us and we feel that sense of companionship because when you look in their eyes there is sentience there they have problem-solving capacity sometimes they go about acting out in ways that is very childlike and it's very endearing very warming and

whenever we look at the dehumanization aspect whenever we don't necessarily have to be angry but rather where we're indifferent and extreme of indifference to where we're willing to haul off and hurt something or someone and treated as if it's just a thing just just an action and something to be done not unlike what we would do when we exterminate insects so that way we don't have bug bites occurring in the home or spider bites and

and brown recluse is biting us with a great deal of frequency which is not healthy for us especially when living inside of a house where we're in a wooded area there's a lot of wildlife running around now there are those of us that show a great deal of compassion towards little spiders and bugs and beetles and I'm one of those and I try to capture I've captured I don't know how many tarantulas many years ago when my sons were smaller they tried to sneak in the home and

my partner at the time Mom and children would want me to kill them and I would not I would ask for a jar or a cool whip a tub and capture them and I would release them outside and they would go along their merry way and I just could not do that sometimes I would even drive a quarter mile down the road and release them into a gold field where they had a better chance of surviving and living now did they don't know but at least gave them the chance and

armando (15:29.884)
there is something inside of me that would not allow me to do that it's not so much that I haven't killed animals before I have hunted before but only for food not for sport I don't do sport of killing I have fish before for food but I catch and release if I ever go fishing but I definitely know that if I have to I can and it's not something that it's I'd like to talk about and say I'm proud of that nor can do this that that flexion of of human or

as a power over the natural world to me is just a very sickening idea I do believe that one should be able to do that especially if you have to provide and that is something that were much closer to and in simpler and more ancient times and we don't have to do that anymore but that is something that we have to be able to harden ourselves to be able to do to survive sometimes and I don't have a problem with that in the larger sense but I just don't see any point that there's no enjoyment there I would much rather go

or a market and buy food than to render it myself and then butcher it I'm not okay with that but that's just me as an individual now as far as martial art and training I've trained many years to be one a warrior to a protector three a parent on top of that a mentor to many but not teaching people to

develop a mindset of the killer elite and that you know one has to be superior and win because that is a zero sum game perspective that's something that stemmed from sport and it tends to distort what true martial art is about then it's martial science the study of physiology psychology and also the the idea of strategy to protect life not necessarily to end life for the sake of ending life and those are really important perspectives here because it really

plays into self regulatory skill really plays into anthropomorphism having kindness for the people with whom you oppose and realizing that they're human and not losing that humanity within oneself and being able to regulate oneself whenever one is under stress so that one doesn't cross over into dehumanizing the person or the individual or the creature that's across from you that is your counterpart in that situation now we have an opportunity to learn in many cases some very deep lessons and there are time

armando (17:51.432)
wherever we must protect ourselves and that is absolutely understandable and it's all about context and what I want to point out is that when dehumanization occurs there is a contextual failure because at some point somebody gives up one's

autonomy and one's sovereignty as an individual to make choices and if the stress is high enough my running man model that i speak from all the time therefore the name of this podcast as well as a project always developing always growing and improving we have to recognize that our physiology can hijack the highest

aspect of our brain, prefrontal cortex, that's where our best reasoning comes from. That's where our best ideas come from, to be able to create math, to make architecture and make these little houses that we live in, this sort of thing. But yet, whenever our stress is high enough, we can't do those things very well. The blood flow leaves the front part of our brain, where our finest reasoning and weighing and rationalizing, strategizing and philosophizing occurs, and it goes out the window. Whenever we're under stress, we run the risk of determining things to be

the As they seem to be kind of like the cardboard cutout at the beer garden wherever you see the the pretty female cardboard cutout that looks lifelike then you walk up to it and realize it's rather flat it's just this one-dimensional thing and You know the difference, but it's

telling

armando (19:57.142)
If you're under the right amount of stress, you're in the right amount of fight-flight experience, you are in a world of hurt in the sense that if you're trying to make the best decisions, you might not. You may want to realize at that point that you don't have the fullest cognitive capacity. Your body will override and say fight, flight, flee. You might flounder and flop. You may faint. You may freeze.

You might crap your pants depending on severity of it. But the fact of the matter is that we tend to overvalue our higher cortex and we tend to get really comfy with the idea that somehow because we're higher level social creatures that we're not going to falter or that our socialization and our humanity is not going to fail. And the fact of the matter is those social schemes

that humanity, idea in quotes that we call our humaneness is somehow this absolute. It's not. And we tend to make big mistakes when we understand that when there's safety in numbers, there's also influence within those numbers.

Whenever we have numbers that are socially and inappropriately charged, have contagion. We also have influence. are those that can walk away from it if you catch it early enough. And I'm going to point out something that's very, very critical within this point of whenever we're dehumanizing as a result of stress and moving away from that kindness and generosity, we lose our capacity for compassion and empathy. Whenever we see things as things, and when we dehumanize, we're no longer dealing with

humanity, we're dealing with an object. have dehumanized to the point to wherever those things out there are things. They're separate from me and somehow different. And I lose the capacity to realize that there is a breathing creature on the other side of me, my counterpart within that moment once again. So that's a really critical point to understand. After we see reports on the news, and we read books about people that have done heinous things, we

armando (22:02.08)
realize that they lived normal lives. did things that otherwise, you know, they were able and had capacity to love and care and raise children and have families do jobs and be just generally nice people around the office, so to speak. yet

In the right context, there's this sense of diffusion of responsibility that can occur where people will act out and they will exact revenge for all that pain that people caused them whenever maybe they were bullied. They never dealt with it. So therefore, you know, they're using this as an opportunity and unloading all that anger that is pent up on somebody that didn't deserve that punishment or treatment, but yet it's a very cathartic thing for them, so to speak. And it's not true catharsis because that's supposedly healthy. And this is something else.

but once again whenever we are looking at levels of stress elevated doesn't matter how intelligent you are your intelligence is not in any way a buffer or protector beyond a certain point because you are at that point being limited you are being the most basic that you can be because it's about survival of organism and we can all be put there there are those who like to think that I'm incapable I would never hurt a fly but yet were you to put their head underwater for a moment toward the

needed to breathe they will fight and they will hurt you not with intent to being malicious and trying to harm you with intent to harm but rather they will harm me in the process of getting free so they could get that precious breath now we have to understand that too we are quite human and more we remember that and the more centered we stay during these moments whenever our environment is going to the park when it's going to heck and we see that other peoples are acting out then this is when we have the opportunity to

to make egress find a way out don't be involved in that and don't follow the group don't be the sheep but we have to be the sheep dog sometimes which means we have to care for others and keep them safe and better yet sometimes we have to

armando (24:00.32)
advocate for ourselves by just pulling ourselves out of the situation at the very beginnings at the initiation of that emotional contagion going bad. Once you see it, time to go. And that is one of the biggest tools that you can provide yourself that will allow you to preserve not only your fullest of intellect, but also the fullest of capacity to have compassion and empathy in situations that become very difficult so that you don't get angry and get emotional and maybe not even run the risk of triggering somebody that is

Running the risk of being guided or even become emotionally triggered as well And we don't want to trigger that in somebody else We'd much rather have kindness compassion and also a safe way to be in the public in the marketplace so to speak So whenever we have the mask of the marketplace on when we go out and we get along to get along I always talk about the level the social level. We also know that the the dark underbelly that's underneath the social Getting along to get along

always there and don't trick yourself into thinking that it's not. And this isn't supposed to be a dark podcast, but one of recognition that to self-regulate, one of the first things we must do is be self-aware. Not only that be in a state of self-regulatory control by virtue of skill, not imposing it. And it's not discipline imposed upon you, but it's a self-discipline. Self-regulation is the first self-discipline learning how to

wait for things and also learning how to be patient but also becoming aware of how you breathe under stress and gaining skills self-regulatory skill is skill building over time and you can become quite masterful of it over time over a lifetime and you'll gain a great deal of quality of life in greater quantities and that's what we want so that's going to bring our discussion to a close for today and i will tell you thank you for sharing this evening with me tuesday evening after work

And, I've been a little tardy on putting this episode out. I really was allowing it to cook a little bit because there's so much in it. But if you have any questions for me or any feedback, please send it to the email at running man, get skills project at Gmail. would love to hear from you wherever it is that you're from. And if you have an opportunity, go to YouTube and like subscribe and share, trying to grow that channel is growing slow, but there it is nice and steady. No one's able to keep an eye out.

armando (26:26.07)
Also whenever I give the signal because the Running Man model will be in print here soon. We're doing some final touches on the editing on that and it will be available probably on Amazon, hopefully in Barnes and Noble as well and also hopefully I'll be able to get it out in the eBook format. But I'd love to share that with you and if you have any questions, once again, the email runningmangetskillsproject at gmail. Take care. Walk well.