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Organizational dehumanization
Florence Stinglhamber & Gaëtane Caesens
Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Contact information: Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Place Cardinal Mercier, 10,
L3.05.01, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
E-mails: florence.stinglhamber@uclouvain.be; gaetane.caesens@uclouvain.be
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Abstract
Organizational dehumanization refers to employees’ perceptions that their organization
reduces them to mere tools or instruments at its service. Since its emergence in the literature,
the construct has generated a burgeoning number of empirical studies. The objectives pursued
through this entry are multiple. After presenting the historical background within which
organizational dehumanization is embedded and its definition, we will briefly discuss the
operationalization of organizational dehumanization. In the next section, we will describe its
nomological network, in terms of antecedents and consequences but also moderators and
underlying mechanisms. Finally, we will provide some perspectives for future research.
Keywords: Organizational dehumanization; mistreatment; employee-employer relationship
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Historical background and definition
Stemming from the literature in social psychology and in particular in intergroup
relations, dehumanization has been defined as a process in which human attributes are denied
to others (Haslam, 2006). Haslam’s (2006) dual model distinguishes two forms of
dehumanization. On the one hand, “animalistic” dehumanization, which refers to the denial of
uniquely human characteristics (e.g., rationality, civility), differentiates humans from animals.
On the other hand, “mechanistic” dehumanization, which refers to the denial of human nature
characteristics (e.g., cognitive openness, interpersonal warmth), reduces individuals to objects
or machines.
Far from being confined to extreme situations such as genocides or to specific
individuals or groups such as people with disabilities, this phenomenon can take more subtle
forms and be pervasive in our daily lives (Haslam, 2006). Professional life is no exception to
the rule and can therefore also be the scene of some dehumanization (Christoff, 2014).
Accordingly, researchers began a few years ago to examine employees’ perceptions of being
denied the main tenets of humanness by their organization.
Because researchers have considered that mechanistic dehumanization is more prone
to occur within organizations (Christoff, 2014), they have defined organizational
dehumanization as “the experience of an employee who feels objectified by his or her
organization, denied personal subjectivity, and made to feel like a tool or instrument for the
organization’s ends” (Bell & Khoury, 2011, p. 170). This perception of being more or less
denied humanity is enabled by the natural tendency of employees to personify their
organization by attributing anthropomorphic characteristics such as benevolent or malevolent
intentions to it. Based on organizational policies and practices and what they experience in the
workplace, they form global perceptions regarding the extent to which the abstract and distal
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entity that is the organization considers them as mere objects at its service. Conceptualized as
an organizational mistreatment capturing the dark side of the employee-employer relationship,
the specificity of organizational dehumanization, in comparison with other forms or types of
organizational (e.g., organizational obstruction) but also interpersonal mistreatments (e.g.,
abusive supervision or incivility from coworkers), has been demonstrated both at the
theoretical and empirical level (see e.g. Brison et al., 2022; Lagios et al., 2023).
Operationalization
As two recent literature reviews indicated (Baldissari & Fourie, 2023; Brison et al.,
2022), organizational dehumanization is most often measured using an 11-item scale. As can
be seen from the items listed in Table 1, they were developed to capture the main components
of mechanistic dehumanization (e.g., instrumentality, fungibility). The scale has been tested in
a variety of research designs (i.e., cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental). Although
there is still progress to be made in this area, it has already been used in samples from
different cultures (e.g., Belgium, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey, UK, US, and Vietnam) and
sectors (e.g., penitentiary, nursing, tourism). Empirical evidence shows that the scale has good
psychometric qualities and supports the unidimensionality of the construct.
Table 1. Eleven-item scale to measure organizational dehumanization
1.
My organization makes me feel that one worker is easily as good as any other
2.
My organization would not hesitate to replace me if it enabled the company to
make more profit
3.
If my job could be done by a machine or a robot, my organization would not
hesitate to replace me by this new technology
4.
My organization considers me as a tool to use for its own ends
5.
My organization considers me as a tool devoted to its own success
6.
My organization makes me feel that my only importance is my performance at
work
7.
My organization is only interested in me when it needs me
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8.
The only thing that counts for my organization is what I can contribute to it
9.
My organization treats me as if I were a robot
10.
My organization considers me as a number
11.
My organization treats me as if I were an object
Note. The items are answered using a 7-point Likert-type agreement scale.
Nomological network
Since its emergence in the literature, organizational dehumanization has been the
subject of a number of empirical studies seeking to identify its nomological network, that is
the antecedents and consequences of this employee perception but also the moderators and
underlying mechanisms of these relationships. Figure 1 provides a summary of the key
findings from this body of research.
Antecedents
Empirical research has first sought to identify the factors that contribute to the
development of this perception of organizational dehumanization among employees. Brison et
al. (2022) identified six categories of antecedents that were found to predict organizational
dehumanization (cf. Figure 1; see also Baldissari & Fourie, 2023). First, organizational
dehumanization may arise from societal factors like the ideologies, economic contexts or
national cultures in which organizations are embedded. For instance, in the Vietnamese
economic model, it is common for employees to work overtime and around the clock to
achieve the organization’s objectives, so that Vietnamese feel less dehumanized by their
organization than their British counterparts. Second, organizational characteristics were found
to elicit organizational dehumanization. More precisely, four main organizational factors,
namely organizational justice, organizational powerlessness, perceived organizational
support, and dysfunctional organizational rules (i.e., red tape or organizational rules that are
perceived as unnecessary, ineffective, and burdensome by an employee) were found to be
associated with organizational dehumanization. Third, some environmental factors such as
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shared and collective workspaces or work environments characterized by poor air quality,
lighting and noise increase employees’ perceptions of being dehumanized by their
organization.
Fourth, job characteristics such as job autonomy, meaningfulness of work or adequacy
of material resources are favorable determinants that are negatively linked to organizational
dehumanization, while professional isolation (i.e., the feeling of not being in contact with
others in the workplace) is an unfavorable characteristic that is positively related to this
dehumanization. Fifth, specific interpersonal factors have been found to negatively predict
organizational dehumanization. In particular, because the supervisor is a representant or an
agent of the entire organization, the quality of the employee-supervisor relationships
(captured through leadership concepts such as abusive supervision, leader-member exchange
or authentic leadership) is a strong determinant of their perceptions to be dehumanized by the
organization as a whole. Sixth and finally, individual factors such as personality traits may
also come into play. For example, employee with high negative affectivity are more likely to
perceive organizational dehumanization.
Although it still requires future research, this body of studies also identified variables
that strengthen or attenuate some of these relationships. In particular, socio-demographic
variables such as age or gender as well as social variables such as perceived coworker support
were found to exert moderating roles (Baldissari & Fourie, 2023; Brison et al., 2022).
Much research is still needed at this stage to better understand the development of a
perception of organizational dehumanization, its boundary conditions but also the
mechanisms that underlie it. To date, research on the antecedents of organizational
dehumanization has primarily focused on identifying antecedents that capture dehumanizing
treatments of which the person is the victim. Broadening the scope of determinants to include,
for example, dehumanizing treatments of which the person is not the direct target now appears
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to be a research perspective to be explored. Observing close colleagues being subjected to
dehumanizing treatment or perpetrating dehumanizing treatment oneself as a result of the
organization's encouragement might also lead the focal person to feel dehumanized by the
organization. Further, a deeper understanding of the mediators and moderators of these
relationships is undoubtedly needed.
Consequences
Research that examined the consequences of organizational dehumanization first
highlighted that organizational dehumanization is harmful for both the holders of this
perception (i.e., employees) and the presumed perpetrator of this mistreatment (i.e., the
organization) (for reviews, see Baldissari & Fourie, 2023; Brison et al., 2022). Specifically, its
negative consequences fall into five main outcome categories. First, organizational
dehumanization is deleterious for employees’ well-being by impairing employees’ mental
(i.e., employees’ emotional exhaustion, psychological strains at work, job stress, and negative
emotions) and physical health (i.e., various psychosomatic symptoms such as trouble
sleeping, headache, and acid indigestion). Second, self-perceptions are also affected as
employees who feel dehumanized by their organization have been shown to report lower
levels of self-esteem and core self-evaluations (i.e., the fundamental and subconscious
conclusions individuals have about themselves, and higher levels of self-dehumanization (i.e.,
perceiving oneself as less than human; Nguyen et al., 2023).
Third, organizational dehumanization has been shown to negatively influence
employees’ attitudes toward their organization and their work, such as their affective
organizational commitment. Fourth, organizational dehumanization also impedes
organizational functioning by affecting employees’ behavioral intentions as well as their
actual behaviors at work. It is, for instance, positively associated with their intention to quit
the organization or their counter-productive or deviant workplace behaviors. Moreover,
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employees who feel dehumanized by their organization are more likely to adopt particular
types of regulatory behavioral strategies such as avoidance coping (i.e., strategy of avoiding
the stressor or actively trying to get away from it) as well as surface acting (i.e., a
subdimension of emotional labor consisting of expressing unfelt emotions by simulating,
suppressing, or amplifying emotions).
Fifth and finally, research showed that beyond employees and organizations, people
who are not in direct relationship with the source of dehumanization (i.e., the organization)
may also be impacted by this perceived mistreatment. Perceptions of organizational
dehumanization can indeed affect the quality of the interactions that the focal employee
experiencing them has with individuals both within and outside the organizational context.
They enhance employees’ depersonalization or dehumanization of the beneficiaries of their
services (e.g., prison officers who are becoming more callous toward inmates or treating them
as if they were impersonal objects). Further, perceptions of organizational dehumanization
produce trickle effects by fostering employees’ undermining of their subordinates, who in turn
undermine their family members (Lagios et al., 2023). Overall, research on the consequences
of organizational dehumanization thus shows that this phenomenon affects the focal employee
perceiving organizational dehumanization, the organization that is the source of the perceived
mistreatment, and the individuals with whom the focal employee interacts (i.e., subordinates,
clients/beneficiaries/ patients, family members, friends, etc.).
Little has yet been done on the variables that may moderate these deleterious
relationships. However, a few studies have already shown that variables capturing individual
differences, such as compliance (Stinglhamber et al., 2023) or psychological capital, play an
important role in attenuating the detrimental effects of organizational dehumanization
(Baldissari & Fourie, 2023). Future research should definitely continue to identify other
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protective factors against organizational dehumanization and, in particular, variables that can
be influenced such as social- or organizational-level variables (Baldissari & Fourie, 2023).
Underlying mechanisms
Researchers have also begun to determine the theoretical frameworks that are relevant
to understand the mechanisms underlying these relationships (Brison et al., 2022). It is first
and foremost the mechanisms underlying the relationships between organizational
dehumanization and its outcomes, and thus allowing to understand why it has these numerous
detrimental effects, that have been investigated. Specifically, this research has taken three
main directions.
First, several scholars (e.g., Christoff, 2014) have suggested that self-determination
theory provides insight into why organizational dehumanization has such deleterious
consequences. In line with this theory, research has shown that perceptions of organizational
dehumanization threaten employees’ basic psychological needs (i.e., needs for autonomy,
competence, and relatedness). This need thwarting in turn affects employees’ well-being and
work attitudes.
Second, social exchange theory was considered useful in understanding why
organizational dehumanization entails negative attitudinal and behavioral consequences.
Organizational dehumanization represents a mistreatment that employees would like to
reciprocate to the organization by engaging in behaviors that harm it. In accordance with this
view, research has shown that employees who feel dehumanized by their organization are
more likely to engage in a sort of retaliation process leading to, for instance, more deviant
behaviors (Stinglhamber et al., 2023).
Third and finally, several scholars relied on displaced aggression theory to explain the
trickle effects of organizational dehumanization. Lagios et al. (2023) showed that, as
retaliatory behaviors directed toward the organization can in some situations produce
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unwanted consequences (e.g., layoff), employees may instead redirect their aggression against
less powerful targets such as subordinates. These subordinates in turn displace their own
aggression against family members in order to avoid punishment or lost rewards from their
supervisors against they would otherwise retaliate.
Although the Job Demands-Resources model, the Conservation of Resources Theory
and the Social Identity Theory have also been proposed as relevant theoretical frameworks for
studying the implications of organizational dehumanization, the three aforementioned
frameworks are undoubtedly the most predominant in the existing literature today. Much
remains to be done on those proven and/or possible mechanisms explaining the links between
organizational dehumanization and outcomes. In particular, future research should certainly
focus on further testing these mechanisms in a joint manner. This will allow to determine
more precisely which ones predominate or which situational and/or personal factors might
lead to an explanatory route being more prevalent. Further, variables that were studied so far
as outcomes of organizational dehumanization (i.e., self-dehumanization and negative
emotions; Baldissari & Fourie, 2023; Brison et al., 2022; Nguyen et al., 2023) might be
viewed in future studies as relevant mechanisms to consider.
Perspectives for Future Research
Despite the growing scholarly interest in organizational dehumanization in recent years
(Baldissari & Fourie, 2023), this literature is still in its infancy. There is thus much work to be
done to expand our understanding of organizational dehumanization. We point here to some
insightful, but not exhaustive, directions that future research might follow.
Strengthening and extending existing results
There is certainly still much research to be done to strengthen and expand the
nomological network of organizational dehumanization, both by replicating existing findings
and by identifying additional antecedents, consequences, moderators and mechanisms through
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more methodologically robust studies (e.g., longitudinal studies with repeated measures, use
of other-reported measures).
With a few exceptions, most studies conducted to date on this nomological network
have involved diverse samples of quite educated and white-collar employees working full-
time in different types of jobs, organizations and sectors, and in Western industrialized
countries. Future research could continue the work by now examining how the phenomenon
of organizational dehumanization plays out among more precarious workers (e.g., seasonal
employees), in particular occupations (e.g., garbage collectors) or sectors (e.g., banking) and
in specific cultures (e.g., collectivist) and by identifying antecedents, consequences,
moderators and maybe even mechanisms that are thus more embedded in a particular
professional reality.
Examining the specific impact of modern HR tendencies and business models
There is a need to identify antecedents that are specific to the concept of organizational
dehumanization and would not apply to all types of organizational (mal)treatments.
Specifically, analyzing the impact of modern trends in management and business models
(e.g., the quantification of work, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and
the uberization of work) seems to be an interesting direction to pursue.
Moreover, it would be relevant to identify situational and personal moderators that
could buffer the negative effects of these managerial and business trends on the employees’
perception of organizational dehumanization. It is unlikely that these trends, which for most
of them also respond to economic objectives, will be swept away by the organizations under
the pretext that they induce such a perception. Therefore, working on moderators that could
cancel, or at least reduce, the negative effects of these trends is really crucial. Yet, as noted
above, despite some exceptions, little has been done on these moderators at this time.
Considering organizational-level dehumanization
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Beyond the development of the nomological network of organizational dehumanization
as conceptualized so far, it might also be interesting to extend its conceptualization.
Organizational dehumanization has been initially conceptualized as an individual-level
variable capturing an employee’s perception of the extent to which their organization treats
them as numbers, tools or objects used to attain organizational goals. This perception may
vary from one individual to another, based on the personal treatment and work conditions and
experiences that is provided by and in the organization.
Preliminary empirical evidence has, however, indicated that, beyond this individual
perception, organizational dehumanization might maybe also be considered as an
organization-level variable capturing a more or less dehumanized climate in organizations.
Research on the trickle effects indeed showed that organizational dehumanization felt by
supervisors is positively related to supervisors’ undermining behaviors toward their
subordinates, suggesting that dehumanization received at one hierarchical level of an
organization can percolate to lower levels (Lagios et al., 2023). In light of these findings,
adopting a multi-level approach of dehumanization seems to be a line of research that makes
particular sense.
Studying the similarities, differences, and interplay with animalistic organizational
dehumanization
Scholars have so far considered that the mechanistic form of organizational
dehumanization is more relevant to examine because of its greater prevalence in organizations
(Bell & Khoury, 2011). Accordingly, they have mainly focused on this form of organizational
dehumanization, leaving its animalistic dimension (i.e., employees’ perceptions to be treated
as under-evolved beings such as animals or children by their organization) underexplored.
Yet, recent research indicates that animalistic organizational dehumanization also holds
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significance in the workplace and may thus also occur in organizational settings (Brison et al.,
in press).
Extending organizational dehumanization research to this second form and exploring its
nomological network to identify similarities and differences with that of mechanistic
organizational dehumanization seems to be an interesting next step in the development of this
research area. Furthermore, examining whether a certain form of organizational
dehumanization may be more relevant in some specific jobs (e.g., garbage collectors to use an
earlier example) and how the two forms of organizational dehumanization interplay to
engender possible multiplying effects could also be an interesting topic for future research.
Considering the bright side of organizational dehumanization
Organizational dehumanization has been conceptualized so far as an organizational
mistreatment related to the dark side of the employee-employer relationship and resulting in
deleterious consequences. However, it would be interesting to take a more positive view of
the concept and consider the potentially positive side of the phenomenon. Comparing others
to “machines” or “beasts” is not always a means to insult or demean them and can even be, in
some work contexts, a way to compliment employees for their perseverance, hard work and/or
skills. Examining when comparisons to machines or animals are derogatory or complimentary
and thus adopting a more nuanced view of organizational dehumanization could be a fruitful
avenue for future research.
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References
Baldissari, C., & Fourie, M. M. (2023). Dehumanizing organizations: Insidious effects of
having one’s human integrity denied at work. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences,
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on organizational justice and ethics (pp. 167–197). Information Age.
Brison, N., Lagios, C., Caesens, G., & Stinglhamber, F. (in press). Working like a machine or
a beast: Exploring mechanistic and animalistic dehumanization in organizations. Special
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Research Encyclopedia in I/O Psychology.
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Nguyen, N., Maurage, P., & Stinglhamber, F. (2022). Organizational Metadehumanization
and Self-Dehumanization: The Role of Surface Acting. Group Processes and
Intergroup Relations, 25(8), 1983-2002. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302221095757
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Figure 1. Key findings on the nomological network of organizational dehumanization
