Dehumanization of outgroup members in situations of intergroup competition has been widely reported (Haslam, 2006), but the effects of individual competition on dehumanization have not yet been extensively explored. A previous study in our lab examined this effect and found an unexpected gender difference, with women showing greater implicit dehumanization than men. The present study aimed to explore a possible mechanism for that gender difference: gendered expectations of maintaining positive interpersonal relations, and subsequent discomfort in competitive situations, may motivate the implicit dehumanization of competitors. Participants interacted briefly with a confederate and were then given instructions for a competitive or non-competitive game. Participants then completed two Single-Category Implicit Association Tests measuring dehumanization of their game partner. Participants also completed the Mind Perception Questionnaire, which measures explicit dehumanization of participants’ game partners. We predicted that in the Competition condition, female participants would implicitly dehumanize their game partners more than men would.
