Exploring Self-dehumanization as a Factor in Misinformation Belief and Spread

Weiss, Andrew, Ghosh, Souvick and Johnson, Frances (2024) Exploring Self-dehumanization as a Factor in Misinformation Belief and Spread. In: ACM SIGIR Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIR2025), 24 March 2025 - 28 March 2025, Melbourne, Australia. (In Press)

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Abstract

The role of dehumanization is little explored in the literature of misinformation studies, primarily seen as a mechanism of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) to denigrate members of targeted outgroups. One noted aspect of dehumanization is the unexpected impact it has on the person enacting it as well as the victims, resulting in the noticeable phenomenon of self-dehumanization (SD), in which persons deny their own humanity. Notably, a link to SD in information behavior may be evident in the foundational research of Eflreda Chatman, whose examination of information poverty, life in the round, and normative behavioral theory resulted in sometimes perplexing findings where those in marginalized groups often would refuse to seek out information helpful to them, including health information or rely on the insular knowledge of their group. It is theorized that a missing link in Chatman’s approach – accounting for some of the unexpected results in her research – may be the effect of self-dehumanization on marginalized groups and their members. The result of such self-dehumanization effects may impact information use, pointing toward another factor in the way that misinformation is believed or spread. This paper shows a novel way forward in the field of information science and information behavior, examining an important aspect of how misinformation may come to be believed and shared within smaller worlds and codified in marginalized groups’ normative behaviors. Finally, the paper points the way toward a nascent conceptualization of the ‘misinformation needs’ inherent to the normative behaviors of those within marginalized groups.