The longstanding view of workers as objects: antecedents and consequences of working objectification

ABSTRACT

Objectification refers to the perception and treatment of human beings as mere objects. Although this dehumanizing process has deeply permeated the domain of work throughout history, social psychology researchers have only recently begun to empirically investigate it. Here, we review the recent literature that analysed working objectification by considering its two main facets: objectification (when workers are objectified by others) and self-objectification (when workers objectify themselves). First, we theoretically define the construct of working objectification, disentangling it from related constructs and reviewing the research on motivational and cognitive processes underpinning workers’ objectification. Then, we focus on the workers’ perspective and systematise the research on the consequences of the metaperception of being objectified. Finally, we focus on a series of experimental and field studies that analyse the antecedents and consequences of workers’ self-objectification. We conclude by discussing future directions and highlighting the theoretical and practical contributions of this line of research.

KEYWORDS:

• Objectification
• self-objectification
• workers
• work
• dehumanization

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the other main authors of our studies (Roberta Rosa Valtorta and Alessandro Gabbiadini) and the dedicated research assistants who have supported us in collecting data throughout the years. In addition, we are thankful to all colleagues, who through dialogues and discussions, have helped us to expand our research. In particular, we wish to remember Jean-Pierre Deconchy for his insights on determinism and free will. Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to all the workers and companies for their precious collaborations.

Notes

¹ The latter was selected as the comparison condition because like factory workers, artisans perform manual labour. However, as Arendt (1958) argues, artisans’ labour should be typically perceived as less repetitive, less fragmented and less time constrained than factory work.

² In most of the reviewed studies, the two scores were usually combined in a single index, in which the human score was subtracted from the instrument one, so that higher scores indicated greater self-perceptions of being instrument- (vs. human-) like.