Replication Data for: "Less Human Than Human: Threat, Language, and Relative Dehumanization"

A government's decision to communicate in a native tongue rather than a commonly used and understood but non-native language can prompt perception through an ethnically-tinted lens. While native-language communication is commonplace and typically benign, we argue that conveyance of a threat posed by an outgroup in a native tongue can trigger dehumanizing attitudes. To test our expectations, we conduct a pre-registered survey experiment in India, focusing on attitudes toward Muslim and Chinese people. In our two-stage design, we randomly assign respondents to a survey language (Hindi or English) and, subsequently, to threat-provoking or control conditions. While both Muslims and Chinese are associated with recent violence against India, only the former have been routinely portrayed by the government as threatening. As a likely result of this divergence, Hindi language assignment alone triggers Muslim dehumanization. Indians’ more innocuous views of Chinese are, however, responsive to exogenously-induced threat, particularly when conveyed in Hindi.