It Seems Sometimes a Surface Reading is Sufficient

[annoni_no]

A recent paper published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that reader identification with with the main character of Harry Potter (and disidentification with Voldemort) positively correlated with reduced bias toward stigmatized minorities in real life.  Researchers found this Harry Potter effect was significant even after controlling

Comments

[annoni_no]

The only people who used, and allowed the use of, the term "sub-humans" were the writers and editors at Pacific Standard. The closest the original researchers came was this passage providing context for the novels:

The world of Harry Potter is characterized by strict social hierarchies and resulting prejudices, with obvious parallels with our society. First of all, people without magic powers are profoundly discriminated [against] in the “wizarding world.” Another stigmatized category is that of “half-blood” or “mud-blood,” wizards and witches born from families where only one parent has magical abilities. Other examples of stigmatized categories are the elves (servants and slaves of wizards), the half-giants (born from one giant parent and an “ordinary” wizard or witch), the goblins (who guard the bank of wizards). These latter categories represent creatures that are not “fully” human; They are however represented by Rowling as humanized, and can thus be easily perceived as low-status human categories. Harry has meaningful contact with characters belonging to stigmatized groups. He tries to understand them and appreciate their difficulties, some of which stem from intergroup discrimination, and fights for a world free of social inequalities.

The researchers themselves explicitly drew parallels between the mythological species and marginalized human groups. Whether this comparison was also made by a general reading audience was the primary question the studies sought to answer. The data they obtained support the hypothesis that people do tend to make that generalization, within certain parameters.

There are a number of criticisms one can make of the study, but hypocrisy isn't one of them.

[oneandthetruth]

Oh, okay. Thank you. I wasn't aware of that.