>>13738283It's a cognitive bias induced on a large scale. Making it more or less a psyop tactic, one which heavily depends on collective ignorance of a given subject matter. The effectiveness of dehumanization largely depends on how many traits you can differentiate between two target populations. The more differences you can present, the easier time will have to induce dehumanization. Sometimes in the absence of obvious inherent traits you can artificially create new traits to be used instead. A good example that is widespread would be clothing patterns. More ornate or uniform clothing tends to induce people into associating it with higher class people with lots of resources. While ragged clothing or mismatch clothing tends to induce people into associating it with lower class people with little resources.
The dependency of collective ignorance comes into play when the average person fails to realize that clothing they associate with higher class could be masking large amounts of debt. While the clothing associated with lower class could be a form of practicality e.g. wear and tear from taking care of your large farm.
It's all about highlighting the differences and depending on ignorance. And yes it's very effective and has been thousands of years.
