Disasters are not cute

Cute expressions increase dehumanisation

Bibliographic Data

ID15345931
AuthorsJiaxin Shi (0000-0002-6060-926X, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Development and Education for Special Needs Children; Department of Psychology, Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, China), Junjie Qiu (0000-0001-8374-3181, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Development and Education for Special Needs Children; Department of Psychology, Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, China, corresponding author), Tuo Liu (0000-0002-5223-3258, Division for Psychological Methods and Statistics, Department of Psychology, Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany)
Year2021
Volume31
Issue5
Pages515-521
Publication date2021-09-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Psychology in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1433-0237 • E-ISSN: 1815-5626
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14330237.2021.1978666
OpenAlexW3208549925
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited27

People perceive cute expressions about situations or events positively or negatively. However, the conditions for how cute expression messaging would be received are less clear. In three studies, we investigated the influences of natural disaster cute expression messaging on audiences to determine the feelings the messaging engendered and perceptions of the content creator’s humanity. Study 1 examined cute expression messaging effects of a natural flood disaster. Studies 2 and 3 examined cute expression messaging of the Coronavirus Disease 2019. Study 1 showed that audiences perceived someone using cute expressions to describe a natural disaster as having a lack of humanity. Studies 2 and 3 indicated that cute expressions about the pandemic caused audiences to feel disgusted, leading to a dehumanising perception towards the content creator. Moreover, Study 3 showed that dehumanising the author could further contribute to aggression. From these findings, we conclude that cute expression messaging to describe disasters could be aversive, disrupting perceptions of a shared sense of humanity, and risking aggression against the content creators

Aggression · Dehumanization · Expression (computer science · Feeling · Humanity · Perception · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Humor Studies and Applications · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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