Human Again: Increasing Empathy and Expanding the Moral Circle to Include Homeless People

Human Again: Increasing Empathy and Expanding the Moral Circle to Include Homeless People (2016)

Abstract

There are almost 400,000 homeless persons in the United States. The state of Georgia accounts for 14,000 of these individuals, with over 4,000 living in within the City of Atlanta. This proposal asserts that institutionalised violence against homeless populations like public nuisance ordinances and lack of funding is maintained through the dehumanisation of the homeless. The proposal defines dehumanisation in terms of moral exclusion. The proposed intervention will manipulate the moral circle of housed individuals through the mechanisms of the hypocrisy effect and reindividualisation of homeless people to disrupt the status quo around policy related to the homeless.

 

How many times have I averted my eyes from a homeless person or seen a parent steer their child clear of a prone body on the sidewalk? It is easy to dismiss their situation as their fault and to absolve oneself of responsibility. After all, I am not one of them. The United States Department of Health and Human Services defines a homeless individual as someone who “lacks housing … including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility (e.g., shelters) that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing” (“Definition of Homelessness” n.d.). As of January 2015, there were over 500,000 homeless people in the United States (“State of Homelessness in America”, 2016). In Georgia there are around 13,000 homeless individuals, with over 4,000 of these individuals within the City of Atlanta alone (“Homelessness Report”, 2015). While homelessness is decreasing across the US with a 2% decrease between 2014 and 2015, (“State of Homelessness in America”, 2016), recent events in Atlanta highlight how much work is still to be done. In October of 2016, the Atlanta City Council voted to allow bidding on the Metro Atlanta Taskforce for the Homeless Peachtree-Pine shelter in order to replace it with a specialised facility for the Atlanta SWAT team (Bell, 2016). The shelter had been struggling with debt for years and housed community members considered it a danger to the community (Suggs, 2016). However, there do not seem to be concrete plans in place to accommodate the homeless people who are sheltered at Peachtree-Pine, and there is a fear that the relocation site will make it even harder to access resources that are necessary for the wellbeing of homeless people. While there are three major stakeholders in this situation– the City, the housed community members, and the unhoused community members– the needs of the unhoused have been ignored.

The oppression of the homeless is seen in instances like these where the needs and voices of the homeless are ignored for a greater good. Policies are passed and enacted without a second thought. Public spaces are designed specifically to prevent homeless people from cleaning themselves or resting. Homeless people are often arrested for sleeping on the streets or in parks, but here in Atlanta there are significantly fewer beds than homeless individuals. Shelters like Peachtree-Pine have been struggling with funding for years. Why? Discourse around dehumanisation often focuses on race, gender, and ethnicity, but I believe that dehumanisation is one of the core mechanisms that feed the institutionalised oppression that the homeless face. The interests of the homeless– access to “shelter, bathing, and disposing of waste” (Tollis & Hammack, 2015)– become secondary to the interests and comforts of civil society because the homeless are seen as less deserving, less worthy, less human. I believe that housed community members dehumanise the homeless, and so do not fully register the atrocity of policies related to the homeless. For the purpose of my proposal, I will be defining dehumanisation in terms of moral exclusion. “Moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply.” (Opotow, 1990).

Dehumanisation makes it easier to harm and harder to help (Haslam & Stratemeyer, 2016) and it has been linked to a preference for harsher punishments for the dehumanised group. We are less likely to recognise pain and suffering of dehumanised groups, and we even attribute fewer secondary emotions (complex emotions that we consider to be uniquely human) to them (Haslam, 2006).  Within dehumanisation literature, delegitimisation and deindividualisation are considered to be processes that exacerbate dehumanisation. Delegitimisation is the attribution of negative beliefs to a specific group to justify excluding them from the moral circle (Tileagă, 2007). Deindividualisation ensures that members of the group are not seen as unique actors with unique experiences and motivations (Haslam, 2006). These two processes are common in the dehumanisation of homeless people. In the case detailed in the introduction, homeless people are perceived as criminal, threats to public safety, dangerous, and thus unworthy to remain in the city.

Intervention

My intervention will manipulate the viewer’s moral circle through the hypocrisy effect and “perception shifts” that will increase empathy– perceiving the other as an individual (Halpern & Weinstein 2004).  Using Halpern and Weinstein’s construct of empathy, the intervention will induce cognitive dissonance and the hypocrisy effect to manipulate the viewer’s moral circle and influence subsequent behaviour.

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort felt when our behaviour does not match up with our attitudes and self-concept. It can be reduced by changing behaviour to align with our attitudes, changing attitudes to justify behaviour, and by misattributing the discomfort to another salient source. The hypocrisy effect (Fried & Aronson, 1995) uses this cognitive dissonance to change behaviour. The effect is activated when an individual publicly advocates a behaviour, and is privately reminded of incidences when they did not behave in this manner. In order to maintain their self-image, the individual changes subsequent behaviour to align with the publicly advocated attitude. According to Stone and Fernandez (2008) the hypocrisy effect works best when “people publicly advocate the importance of the target course of action and then are privately reminded of their own recent personal failures to perform the target behavior” [emphasis from the original text].

Method

The intervention will utilise the hypocrisy effect to stimulate behaviour change, while language coded to elicit empathy will encourage the participant to consider homeless people as human. This will be done through the use of posters around the community. Six months before and after the intervention is introduced, community members will complete an evaluative survey, discussed later in this paper.

Design. Introducing multiple categorisations can encourage re-individualisation and inclusion into the moral circle (Prati et al., 2015), and unexpected categories can reduce emotional intergroup bias (Prati et al., 2016). In order to encourage moral inclusion, the posters will use multiple categorisations, and examples of prosocial behaviour. The examples of prosocial behaviour will counter the stereotype that homeless people are antisocial (Toolis & Hammack, 2015), as well as establish a criterion for being a good community member.

The posters will show two images of the same individual performing the same prosocial task. In the first image the individual will be smartly dressed, while in the second the individual will be in tattered, soiled clothing. The accompanying text will be as follows:

Meet (Name).

Like you, (Name) does (prosocial task).

(Name) is a (social categorisation 1), (social categorisation 2) and

(social categorisation 3).

This is their community too.

Have you been a good neighbour today?

In order to induce the cognitive dissonance, the posters will be placed in areas associated with the prosocial behaviour to establish public advocacy, for example near a recycling receptacle. These prosocial behaviour locations will be determined from the pre-test survey that will be discussed further in this paper. The poster will establish the homeless individual featured as a productive community member, and the ending question will initiate reflection on previous behaviour.

Participants. Participants will be housed community members and will be found in city council meetings and community centres. Ideally, the population would have a diversity of ages, and would include both home-owners and renters.

Evaluation

There will be pre and post-intervention evaluative surveys to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. The survey design reflects the experimental literature in the fiel, and will explore potential factors that may mediate empathy and the circle of moral regard. The pre-test survey will also include measures to determine locations associated with prosocial behaviour.

Survey Design

Questions will be answered using either a 7-point Likert scale (1- I completely disagree, 7- I completely agree) or a free response. Participants will also provide their demographic information (age, gender, ethnicity, domestic status [home-owner, renter, un-housed]).

  1. I consider myself to be a good person.
  2. This is my community.
  3. There are people who deserve access to resources less than I do.
  4. How much time do you spend in public spaces?
  5. What do you think, feel, or do when you see a homeless person?

The survey will also determine attitudes towards policies and law that affect homeless populations.

  1. I know a lot about policies that affect the homeless.
  2. How do you feel about the current policies that affect the homeless?

Laham (2009) found that people were more likely to include members of out-groups in their moral circle if the language primed for an exclusion mind-set than if they were primed for an inclusion mind-set (i.e. who is excluded versus who is included).

  1. Who do you exclude from your moral circle?

Čehajić et al. (2009) found that perception of in-group responsibility for the circumstances of the out-group reduced attribution of secondary emotions (a type of dehumanisation), but increased empathy.

  1. I feel responsible for homeless people.
  2. Homeless people are responsible for their own situations.
  3. The community is responsible for circumstances of homeless people.

The following questions will be included in the only pre-test evaluation in order to determine the specific locations of the posters and prosocial behaviours.

  1. What are some activities that a good community member engages in?
  2. What are the locations that these activities take place in?

Analysis

If the intervention is successful, there will be a significant change in the pre- and post-intervention responses to questions 5 through 11 to reflect more positive attitudes towards the homeless and increased awareness of homeless policy. Numerical responses will be analysed using t-tests and qualitative responses will be analysed using coding.

Conclusion

Limitations

 The intervention is limited in that it does not address the effect of social norms on the treatment of the homeless. However, as the intervention modifies attitudes, it can indirectly affect social norms. Additionally, the pre- and post-intervention data can provide information on attitudes and beliefs that can inform future interventions. The recruitment measures for the survey may have a bias as persons who attend city council meetings are already civic-minded.

Implications

Previous studies have shown that while contact can improve attitudes towards homeless people, these attitudinal changes do not affect attitudes towards policies that affect the homeless (Knecht & Martinez, 2008). By manipulating the circle of moral inclusion, this intervention will make housed subjects more open to supporting the humanity of the homeless.

Halpern and Weinstein (2004) differentiate empathy from sympathy by framing empathy as an active and ongoing process. To have empathy is to be okay being uncomfortable with the complexity of the individual, and to acknowledge their humanity regardless of this discomfort. This intervention is just the first step in reducing conflict between housed and unhoused communities. With more empathy towards the homeless, the housed have more motivation than before to question inhumane practices and policies enacted upon homeless people. After all, they are human too.

 

 

 

 

References

Bell, S. (2016, October 7). The City Hasn’t Answered The Question: Where Will They Go? The Atlanta Voice. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantavoice.com/news/the-city-hasn-t-answered-the-question-where-will-they/article_83cb0de0-8c94-11e6-9181-3791906298d5.html

Čehajić, S., Brown, R. & González, R. (2009). What do I Care? Perceived Ingroup Responsibility and Dehumanisation as Predictors of Empathy Felt for the Victim Group. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 12(6), 715–729. doi:10.1177/1368430209347727

Fried, C. B., & Aronson, E. (1995). Hypocrisy, Misattribution, and Dissonance Reduction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(9), 925–933. doi:10.1177/0146167295219007

Georgia Department of Community Affairs. (2015). 2015 Report on homelessness. Retrieved from http://www.dca.state.ga.us/housing/specialneeds/programs/homeless_count.asp

Halpern, J., & Weinstein, H. M. (2004). Rehumanising the Other: Empathy and Reconciliation. Human Rights Quarterly, 26(3), 561–583.

Haslam, N. (2006). Dehumanisation: an integrative review. Personality And Social Psychology Review: An Official Journal Of The Society For Personality And Social Psychology, Inc, 10(3), 252–264.

Haslam, N., & Stratemeyer, M. (2016). Recent research on dehumanisation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 11, 25–29. doi:/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.03.009

Knecht, T., & Martinez, L. M. (2008). Changing Opinions on Homelessness. Conference Papers — Western Political Science Association, 1–47. Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.sophia.agnesscott.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=poh&AN=42981001&site=eds-live

Laham, S. M. (2009). Expanding the moral circle: Inclusion and exclusion mindsets and the circle of moral regard. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(1), 250–253. doi:/10.1016/j.jesp.2008.08.012

National Alliance to End Homelessness. (2016). The State of Homelessness in America 2016. Retrieved from http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/SOH2016

Opotow, S. (1990). Moral Exclusion and Injustice: An Introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 1–20.

Prati, F., Crisp, R. J., Meleady, R., & Rubini, M. (2016). Humanizing Outgroups Through Multiple Categorization: The Roles of Individuation and Threat. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(4), 526.

Prati, F., Crisp, R. J., & Rubini, M. (2015). Counter-stereotypes reduce emotional intergroup bias by eliciting surprise in the face of unexpected category combinations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 61, 31–43. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2015.06.004

Stone, J., & Fernandez, N. C. (2008). To practice what we preach: The use of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance to motivate behavior change. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(2), 1024–1051. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00088.x

Suggs, E. (2016, July 21). Reed wants to close homeless shelter to build emergency center. Atlanta Journal Constitution. Retrieved from http://www.ajc.com/news/reed-wants-close-homeless-shelter-build-emergency-response-unit/iXXBrtusOtvBrjEl3vzDnM

Tileagă, C. (2007). Ideologies of moral exclusion: A critical discursive reframing of depersonalisation, delegitimisation and dehumanisation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46(4), 717–737. doi:10.1348/014466607X186894

Toolis, E. E., & Hammack, P. L. (2015). ‘This is My Community’: Reproducing and Resisting Boundaries of Exclusion in Contested Public Spaces. American Journal of Community Psychology, 56(3), 368–382. doi:10.1007/s10464-015-9756-5

What is the official definition of homelessness? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition–homelessness/