Villains or vermin? The differential effects of criminal and animal rhetoric on immigrant cardiovascular responses

Abstract

Prejudicial stressors are well documented and have been shown to elicit both cardiovascular threat responses as well as poor poststressor cardiovascular recovery among targets of prejudice, but these responses may be even stronger if those prejudicial stressors involve dehumanizing, animalistic content. We predicted that immigrant participants who are exposed to animal metaphors in an attempt to elicit feelings of dehumanization (i.e., metadehumanization) would exhibit both larger cardiovascular threat responses and poorer poststressor recovery, as mediated by the presence of state-rumination, than participants exposed to criminal metaphors. We examined the cardiovascular reactivity and recovery of 150 first- and second-generation U.S. immigrants during nonimmigration and immigration speech tasks. For the immigration speech, participants were randomly assigned to read a fabricated article that either primed prejudicial attitudes via animal metaphors or via criminal metaphors about immigrants. Controlling for nonimmigration speech reactivity, results showed that threat responses were significantly greater among those primed with animal metaphors compared to those primed with criminal metaphors. These effects were prolonged, such that participants in the animal condition displayed poorer recovery after the task compared to those in the criminal condition. Participants with greater levels of state-rumination also exhibited poorer recovery than those who ruminated less. These results showcase the more insidious cardiovascular stress responses to dehumanizing prejudice compared with nondehumanizing rhetoric. Implications of these findings are discussed.