When public debates turn sharp or ugly, it’s tempting to shrug off harsh language as just part of the noise — distasteful, certainly, but not truly harmful. Yet research from neuroscience, history and social psychology points to something deeper: The words we use can shift how our brains perceive other people. Dehumanizing language doesn’t simply describe; it subtly reshapes our reactions, our empathy and even our beliefs about what treatment others deserve.
Studies by Princeton social psychologist Susan Fiske show that when people hear groups described with labels like “animals,” “predators” or “illegals,” activity decreases in the medial prefrontal cortex — the region that helps us understand other people’s thoughts and feelings. It’s the same kind of neural quieting that occurs when we look at objects instead of humans. Put simply, when language strips people of their humanness, the brain often follows suit.
This shift has real consequences. Empathy isn’t just a warm feeling — it shows up in our bodies and brains and shapes how we treat other people. Studies in social neuroscience show that things like our heart rate and brain activity are connected to how deeply we empathize, and they can even predict how likely we are to help others.
For example, when people are engaged emotionally, they experience higher resting heart rates. They tend to be more sensitive to other people’s emotions at the brain level, especially in areas involved in emotional understanding. When our brains are strongly engaged during moments of empathy — when we truly “get” what someone else is feeling — we are more likely to act in ways that benefit others. That can look small, like holding a door open, or bigger, like volunteering, donating money or working well with others in a group.
Research also shows that empathy is shaped by language itself. The way something is said can increase or decrease how much empathy people feel, which in turn affects their willingness to help. In other words, words don’t just describe reality — they can change how we respond to it.
History offers painful proof of this. In Rwanda, radio broadcasts repeatedly referred to Tutsi people as “cockroaches” in the years before the genocide. Nazi propaganda portrayed Jewish people as “rats” or “parasites.” During World War II, Japanese Americans were labeled “aliens” and treated as threats to be contained.
These were not casual insults. They were deliberate choices of language that made cruelty seem acceptable — and even necessary.
Despite our hope that such patterns are behind us, modern research suggests the opposite. A broad body of work in social psychology shows that dehumanizing language and portrayals — framing people as less than fully human or emphasizing their “otherness” — are associated with harsher attitudes and policy preferences. Experimental and survey research finds that when immigrants or asylum-seekers are described in dehumanizing terms, people express greater support for punitive actions, more restrictive immigration policies and stronger punitive responses to perceived transgressions than when humanizing language is used. For example, studies indicate that seeing or using dehumanizing language correlates with increased endorsement of harsher punishments for immigrants and other out-groups and more negative attitudes toward inclusive immigration policies, even after accounting for general prejudice. These findings suggest that when people are framed as something less than fully human, public empathy and willingness to protect their rights shrink accordingly, making punitive and exclusionary policies more acceptable.
Part of why this happens is simply how our brains operate. We are natural categorizers: constantly sorting people and information into mental buckets of “safe,” “unsafe,” “us” and “not us.” Dehumanizing language nudges certain groups into the “not us” category. Once there, empathy becomes optional — and sometimes inconvenient.
However, the science also offers reasons for cautious optimism: Empathy is not a fixed trait. It is plastic, shaped by attention, habit and context. Research in social and cognitive neuroscience suggests that even brief acts of perspective-taking — deliberately imagining another person’s thoughts, emotions or lived circumstances — can increase engagement in the brain networks that support social understanding. Neuroimaging studies show that adopting another’s point of view activates regions involved in interpreting mental and emotional states, including areas closely tied to empathic processing. When people are prompted to think in this way, they tend to show stronger empathy-related responses and greater willingness to act in prosocial ways, compared with more detached or purely analytical modes of thought.
Findings from social psychology converge on the same conclusion. Even modest, humanizing exposures — such as reading narratives that portray out-group members as complex individuals or imagining a positive interaction with someone perceived as different — can measurably reduce implicit bias. Research on the “imagined contact” hypothesis demonstrates that simply envisioning a friendly encounter with a member of an out-group can soften implicit prejudice, at least in the short term, when compared with neutral control conditions. Taken together, these studies suggest that empathy need not be cultivated only through prolonged moral effort or institutional reform; it can also be shaped, moment by moment, through the stories we encounter and the perspectives we choose to inhabit.
Some institutions have taken these findings seriously. Restorative justice circles in schools replace labels like “problem kid” with language focused on needs and behaviors. Several police departments use training rooted in cognitive empathy research to counteract the dehumanizing effects of stress. Medical schools are teaching narrative medicine so future doctors learn to see patients as full people, not just diagnoses.
We often underestimate the moral weight of everyday speech. In a polarized world where arguments flare quickly and social media rewards the sharpest jabs, it’s easy to treat harsh words as unavoidable. But if words can shift our neural responses — if they can make empathy either easier or harder — then language is never neutral. When we casually repeat terms that reduce others to objects or caricatures, we participate in reshaping our own minds toward indifference or even cruelty.
The answer isn’t censorship. It’s responsibility. We can critique actions without erasing humanity. We can hold firm beliefs while still acknowledging someone else’s dignity. Humanizing language isn’t naive — it is historically wise, psychologically sound and a quiet form of resistance in a world that often pulls people apart.
If words can wound, they can also heal. And choosing them with care may be one of the simplest, most powerful ways to keep our shared humanity intact.