Who Counts as Human in Your Mind? with Lasana Harris

When do you view another person like an object? This is what neuroscientists mean when they talk about de-humanization: your brain doesn’t crank up its social circuitry to understand the other person as having a mind like you do. Is dehumanization a cause of violence, or the fuel that keeps it burning? Do people who view themselves as highly empathetic dehumanize more than others? And on the flip side, why do we sometimes think chatbots or robots are people with interior minds? Will kids raised with AI grow up to fight for AI rights? Today we dive deep into how your brain sees others with social neuroscientist Lasana Harris.

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More Information:

Harris LT (2017). Invisible mind: Flexible social cognition and dehumanization. MIT Press.

Harris LT, Delgado N. The functional role of interpersonal dehumanization and associated brain networks. Nature Reviews Psychology. 2025 May;4(5):336-46.

Harris LT, Fiske ST. Dehumanizing the lowest of the low: Neuroimaging responses to extreme out-groups. Psychological science. 2006 Oct;17(10):847-53.

Christopher R. Browning. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Harper Perennial.

Vaughn DA, Savjani RR, Cohen MS, Eagleman DM. Empathic neural responses predict group allegiance. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2018 Jul 31;12:302.

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