A series of five experiments across the UK, the United States and Canada suggests that when people feel their political group is seen as fully human by opponents, they become more willing to negotiate, compromise and work across party lines. In particular, the research finds this effect operates mainly by lowering disgust toward the opposing party, and is most pronounced when concerns about social cohesion feel moderately threatened.
In recent years, political disagreements in Western democracies have increasingly taken on personal and moral overtones. Psychologists describe this as affective polarization—the tendency for partisans to distrust and dislike those on the other side, viewing them not merely as policy opponents but as morally deficient or even subhuman.
Another factor at play is meta-perceptions: beliefs about how one’s own group is viewed by outsiders. Partisans often worry that the other side dehumanises them, a phenomenon known as meta-dehumanization. A 2020 American study found substantial overestimation of the other side’s hostility and dehumanisation, and that such beliefs predicted support for spiteful actions that threaten democratic norms.
Conversely, meta-humanization—the belief that the opposing side sees one’s own group as fully human—may help repair relations, according to researchers who have explored the idea in Canada, the UK and beyond. Earlier work in Canada and the UK suggested that perceiving mutual humanity reduces prejudice and promotes friendly contact, even amid tension, whereas a 2024 post-conflict Kosovo study yielded a more limited effect on willingness to negotiate.
Beyond whether opponents are viewed as human, the researchers asked how such perceptions influence emotions tied to moral judgment. Emotions like anger, disgust and empathy are known to shape intergroup behaviour, but the precise route by which feeling humanised affects willingness to reconcile remained unclear. The team therefore set out to identify the emotional mechanism that connects meta-humanization with conciliatory attitudes.
The project was led by Melissa Pavetich, an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University’s Dubai campus and a member of the SOCIAL Impact Lab, together with Sofia Stathi of the University of Greenwich. Pavetich explained that the aim was “to identify the emotional route that links [meta-humanization] to whether people are willing to reconcile.”
Across the five experiments, the researchers controlled for how often participants themselves had contact with people from the rival party as a measure of everyday exposure. The first study, conducted in February 2021 via Prolific, involved 353 British adults split roughly evenly between Conservative and Labour supporters. Participants read fictional social media posts attributed to the rival, framed as either humanising or dehumanising.
In the meta-humanisation condition, posts described the participant’s party as “sophisticated,” whereas in the meta-dehumanisation condition they described them as “animals and brutes lacking in self-control.” After reading, participants rated their feelings and attitudes on seven-point scales.
Both Labour and Conservative supporters exposed to the humanising posts reported lower anger and disgust, weaker intentions to hurt or humiliate opponents, and greater willingness to engage in close social contact, such as receiving care from a doctor of the opposing party. In numerical terms, Labour supporters showed markedly lower disgust and anger in the humanising condition, with Conservative supporters showing a similar pattern across disgust, hostility and social distance.
To build a more complete picture, Study 2a added baseline measurements and a measure of perceived threat to social cohesion. It recruited 301 American Republicans, surveyed one week before the 2024 US presidential election, and exposed them to humanising or dehumanising posts from Democrats, or to a control condition with no posts. They then assessed anger, disgust and empathy toward Democrats, and judged Democrats as more or less civil and evolved.
Republicans who read humanising posts reported feeling far more humanised by Democrats (an average of 5.31 out of 7) than those in the control group (3.91) or the dehumanising condition (1.52). The statistical analysis indicated that the reduction in disgust, in turn, led participants to view Democrats as more human and civil, predicting lower affective polarization and greater willingness to negotiate, compromise, participate in bipartisan teamwork and pursue future contact with Democrats. The effect held under moderate threat to social cohesion and extended to several outcomes under high threat for some groups.
Study 2b replicated the American pre-election design with Democrats, using posts attributed to Republicans. Here, Democrats in the meta-humanisation group reported feeling more humanised by Republicans (an average of 5.73) than those in the control group (3.43) or the meta-dehumanisation group (1.70). As with Republicans, disgust served as the key mediator, linking meta-humanisation to more conciliatory attitudes and reduced affective polarization, with the strongest effects under moderate threat to social cohesion.
To determine whether the pattern persisted outside the United States, the researchers conducted Studies 3a and 3b in Canada. Study 3a surveyed 310 Conservative supporters evaluating Liberals, finding that those exposed to humanising posts felt more humanised by Liberals (4.55) than those in the control group (3.81) or the dehumanising group (2.92), with disgust reduction predicting more conciliatory attitudes and lower polarization. The pattern again held under moderate to high threat levels for several outcomes.
Study 3b looked at Liberal supporters and their attitudes toward Conservatives. Liberals in the meta-humanisation condition felt more humanised by Conservatives (4.64) than in the control (3.91) or meta-dehumanisation condition (2.64). Among Liberals reporting low to moderate threat to social cohesion, reduced disgust and increased perceptions of outgroup humanity predicted lower affective polarization and greater support for negotiation, compromise, teamwork and contact. Notably, in this final experiment, heightened empathy also appeared as a parallel bridge to reconciliation for those facing low to moderate threat.
Taken together, the five experiments suggest that perceiving one’s political group as being respected as fully human promotes compromise primarily by dampening disgust, rather than by boosting empathy or reducing anger. Disgust is tied to moral contamination and the drive to avoid the perceived moral breach, so its reduction removes a significant barrier to treating political opponents as fellow citizens deserving dialogue.
As Pavetich put it, “How we think the other side sees us shapes how we treat them.” She added that, across the studies, “when people feel seen as human, they feel less moral disgust toward the other side, and that makes room for reconciliation.”
She also noted that the expected role of empathy was smaller than anticipated. “I expected empathy to do much of the work… Instead, disgust stood out as the main pathway,” she explained, emphasising that reducing a negative moral reaction may matter more than fostering positive emotions.
The researchers observed nuanced differences in how threat influenced the process. The pathway through reduced disgust was most reliable at moderate threat across groups, with some extension to high threat among conservatives and to low threat among liberals. They suggest that conservatives, often highly sensitive to threat cues, may find reassurance in goodwill from the opposing side when threat is elevated, or else respond with renewed warmth toward the outgroup. Conversely, low threat may simply allow people to feel safe enough to engage with humanising messages, while high threat can trigger defensiveness that blocks reconciliation.
It remains, however, that the experiments manipulated participants’ exposure to humanising content but measured emotions and willingness to reconcile at the same time, so the studies cannot definitively establish causality between disgust reduction and openness to negotiation. The authors caution against misapplying the findings and stress that meta-perceptions work best when they reflect genuine signals from the other side.
They also acknowledge limitations, including that perceived threat was measured rather than experimentally manipulated, and that the humanisation scale used—the Ascent of Man scale—has its critics. Future work, they say, should employ a wider range of measures and explore multi-party contexts beyond Western democracies.
Reflecting on the broader implications, Pavetich emphasised that polarization is not only about policy disagreements but also about feeling looked down upon. “Signs that we see the other side as fully human, even when we disagree strongly, may do more to lower the temperature than winning the argument.”
The study, titled Bridging the Political Divide: Meta-Humanization and Moral Emotions Shape Partisan Reconciliation, is authored by Melissa Pavetich and Sofia Stathi.
