Bullying and Dehumanization: 10 Ways Bullies Dehumanize You

June 30, 2025June 29, 20255 Comments

‘Want to know about bullying and dehumanization? ‘Want to know how dehumanization progresses and all the ways bullies try to dehumanize you? Here are all the details!

Dehumanization is dangerous because, when bullies dehumanize you, they label you as sub-human and not worthy of the same rights and considerations as others.

And, once people began looking at you as sub-human, it removes any conscience they might have had before. Therefore, it only makes it much easier for them to abuse you. In fact, even though you’re another human being like they are, they may think that mistreating you is necessary and justified.

Therefore, in this post, you will learn all about bullying and dehumanization. Also, you’ll learn the ways bullies dehumanize you.

Once you learn this crucial, even life-saving information, you will be able to take steps to protect yourself from it. You will also be able to act when you witness it happening to someone else.

This post is all about bullying and dehumanization so that you will recognize it when it happens to you or someone else.

Bullying and Dehumanization

Bullying and dehumanization go hand in hand. Your bullies make you sub-human so that it can be easier for them to abuse you without feeling guilty about it.

What is Dehumanization?

Dehumanization is when everyone else sees those who are not like them as less than human. When people see you as subhuman, they feel that you’re undeserving of the same rights and consideration as everyone else.

For instance, Nazis in 1930’s Germany saw the Jews as less than human. Therefore, it was easier for them to brutalize and kill them.

Dehumanizing you is what bullies will try to do to you if they’ve selected you as their victim. Realize that bullies are abusers and bullying is abuse. And it can only happen if the abuser views their victim as inferior to the rest of the human race.

Dehumanization always starts out subtle.

Bullies and their supporters will analyze you, picking out your differences. Then, they will use those differences to place you in the “other” category.

They then single you out. They may start by leaving you out of social functions and gatherings. Also, they may hurl subtle insults at you that others barely notice. Then slowly take the insults up notch by tiny notch.

Bullying and Dehumanization:

Here are 10 ways they dehumanize you.

1. They spread rumors and lies about you.

And they will repeat those lies over and over. As the old saying goes, “A lie told once remains a lie. But a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth.”

Bullies do this to convince others outside the bully-victim relationship to look at you the way they do. In other words, they want everyone else to view you as defective and morally bankrupt.

Although spreading rumors and lies about you hasn’t reached the level of dehumanization yet. It’s the starting point on the path to it.

2. They demonize you.

How bullies demonize you is through smear campaigns. As this happens, they stir everyone else’s emotions into a frenzy to induce anger and hostility toward you.

Bullies see you as a threat to their power. Therefore, they demonize you to drive you to the bottom of the social hierarchy.

And the smears grow more vicious until they’ve succeeded in turning everyone against you.

3. They place you in an undesirable category of people.

Your bullies may place you in a category of people to make you less of an individual. It’s a psychological fact that de-individualized people seem less than human.

Therefore, you become less protected by social norms against abuse than those viewed as individuals.

For example, your bullies may take away your individuality by placing you in the mentally unstable category. They know that the majority of people view the mentally imbalanced as the least human compared to other categories of people.

In fact, those who suffer from mental illnesses are seen as less human than even hardened criminals. It’s the sad truth.

Once they do this, it becomes easier to justify their brutal atrocities against them.

4. Bullying and Dehumanization:

Everyone grows to hate you.

Moreover, when the bullies demonize you, bystanders and others may turn against you. As time goes on, they may develop the same feelings of hatred toward you.

And it only progresses until your bullies have alienated you from everyone. Then, it becomes easier for them to frame you as the evil monster that must be destroyed.

5. They classify you as “the enemy.”

Bullies convince themselves and everyone else that you’re the enemy. They do this by assigning negative characteristics to you. Moreover, they convince everyone else that you’re void of any morals and decency.

You may be innocent. In other words, you may not have done anything to provoke anyone. However, that doesn’t matter. Bullies and everyone else see you as their enemy

. Therefore, they will categorize you as sub-human to justify abusing you. They will make the abuse seem reasonable and necessary.

This is how dehumanization works.

Once your bullies succeed in portraying you as morally and ethically inferior, evil, and sub-human, they then classify you as the enemy. And once they deem you as an enemy, it becomes much easier for them to brutalize you.

Everyone else will also think that bullying you is acceptable. Again, they may look at it as necessary.

6. Bullying and Dehumanization:

They Strip you of your most basic human rights.

And because your bullies paint you as a diabolical enemy, they believe that the abuse they inflict on you is an obligation. They’re not bullying you. They’re only reacting to an evil enemy. And once they’ve framed you as the enemy, their perspectives of you only become more rigid.

Naturally, most people believe that everyone has the same basic human rights. And those rights should be protected.

Most believe that everyone deserves to be treated fairly and justly – that every human being deserves dignity and respect.

In this country, the majority of people believe that everyone deserves the ability to meet their own needs. Also, they know that everyone has the right to make their own choices.

Even criminals have the right to a fair trial. Also, they have the right to be safe from inhumane punishment for their crimes.

However, in your bullies’ eyes, you’re on the outside of humanity. So, you don’t qualify to receive fair treatment. Moreover, they feel they should block you from any resources to meet your basic needs.

For example, bullies may call around to employers and tell them not to hire you. Why?

Because, again, they do not believe that you are worthy of humane treatment. This is especially dangerous because it puts you at risk of human rights violations, such as physical beatings and even murder.

7. Bullying and Dehumanization:

They feel less guilty for abusing you.

Once others begin viewing you as subhuman, it becomes much easier for them to treat you in ways they would never treat another fellow human being.

Any social restraints that once kept them from abusing you will disappear. Therefore, it will only increase the likelihood that the bullying will get out of control.

It’s hard to believe that even kind people can turn evil. But, in cases like this. It happens.

This is what dehumanization does. It removes any limitations of abusing you. Therefore, it strips you of your rights to personal safety.

Moreover, people begin doing things to you that they never would have done before. This is how good people turn evil.

8. They Accuse you for the same things they’re guilty of.

Once your bullies have succeeded in alienating you from the rest of the school, workplace, or community, they then compare their moral virtues with yours.

In other words, they view everyone else as innocent while viewing you as sickeningly evil. In that, they only deny, downplay, and ignore their evil actions while viewing anything you do as evil or having ulterior motives.

For example, when people mistreat you, others may believe that it’s justified and necessary. However, if you dare to defend yourself against their abuse, they only see it as evidence that you’re a bad person.

Even though you’re the one they’re abusing, they don’t see it that way.

Your bullies and their flying monkeys project their faults and bad behavior onto you. For instance, if your bullies are highly aggressive, they will accuse you of being highly aggressive but not them.

However, see this for what it is. Bullies do this to protect their self-image. Also, they do it to tighten the bonds in their group.

As a result, it only increases their animosity toward you, and the fight intensifies. Therefore, it makes it even easier for them to dehumanize you.

9. Bullying and Dehumanization:

They seek to eliminate you.

Their thinking only becomes zero-sum. Your bullies and their supporters must either destroy you or be destroyed.

Therefore, they up the ante and decide that the best thing for them to do is to annihilate you.

In other words, they want you gone! Down through history, dehumanization has caused many murders and genocides.

It’s because the ultimate goal of dehumanization is the elimination of its target. Dehumanization has paved the way for the taking of many innocent lives.

Realize that they see you as expendable.

10. Once they’ve eliminated you, they’ll deny that they ever bullied you.

After you’re gone, your bullies and everyone else will deny they ever bullied you. Also, they will search for another victim because that’s just what they do.

What can you do to protect yourself?

You probably won’t realize it until it’s already gone too far. Therefore, the best thing to do is to leave the environment and never look back.

You must go where you are safe. And the farther away you move, the better. However, tell no one where you’re going or that you’re moving at all. In the age of social media, it’s just best not to reveal where you plan to move.

Just pack your things and disappear. Your bullies will probably wonder where you went. They may hunt for you for a while. But your enemies won’t find you. They won’t know where to look.

Realize that this doesn’t mean you’re a coward. You are not running from them. You are going somewhere where you can live in peace. Therefore, what you are doing is smart, not cowardly.

Do what you must do to ensure your safety. You’ll be so glad that you did!

This post is all about bullying and dehumanization so that you can recognize the patterns and get out before they have a chance of doing real damage to your psyche.

Related posts you’ll enjoy:

1. Easy Targets for Bullies: 6 Groups of People Bullies Love to Target

2. Bullying and Power: 2 Categories of Power

3. Using Your Enemy’s Attacks Against Them: 5 Ways to Counter Bullying

The Horns Effect: Bully-Induced Bias Against Victims of Bullying

October 29, 2024November 24, 20249 Comments

Do you want to know what the horns effect is and the why’s and how’s of it’s impact on victims of bullying? The H.E. is a type of bias that targets and their friends and family members need to know about.

Bullying not only destroys you confidence, it also destroys your reputation. Why? Because bullies smear and defame you to prevent you from having friends and getting support. Therefore, this can induce what psychologists call, the horns effect.

In this post, you will learn what the horns effect is and how it relates to bullying and effects victims.

Once you learn all about this phenomenon, you will be better able to not only explain it, but combat it and prevent it from happening to you again in the future.

This post is all about the horns effect, how bullies and bullying can bring it on you, and what you can do to minimize it.

The Horns Effect

What is it?

The Horns Effect (or Reverse Halo Effect) – is the opposite of the Halo Effect. It’s a form of bias that causes people’s perception of a person to be negative based on a single (perceived) negative trait.

No one’s perfect, and everyone has negative traits. However, the Horns Effect is an example of how one negative trait over-shadows the positive characteristics of a person.

Moreover, it’s how negative ratings of one quality can easily cross over to judgments of other attributes.

For example, here’s a beautiful and attractive woman. She works hard, has a good heart, and has talent in singing and playing the guitar.

Although the woman is kindhearted, is a knockout, and has superior skill in music, people may view her as foolish for whatever reason. Therefore, they may also view her as unattractive and untalented.

All it takes is one unfavorable rating of one characteristic to influence lower scores of other qualities.

All it takes is one characteristic people don’t like

What happens is that people jump to conclusions about a person too quickly, based only on one imperfection. As a result, they end up wrongly judging the individual.

Other examples of The Horns Effect are when people judge a group based on the behavior of a few bad apples. In other words, they may think that a person with a higher body weight is lazy and has no willpower.

Moreover, some may think that blondes are ditzy, blacks are thugs, whites are racist, and poor people are bums. The H.E. is the root of many stereotypes.

The problem is that we see something we don’t like about a person or a particular member of a group. We then go on judging them from our own unfavorable view.

This only determines our attitude and behavior toward them. Consequently, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when they push back. The demonized persons backlash only reinforces those negative attitudes that their bad traits are connected to all other characteristics.

The same thing happens when you’re bullied for so long. You finally get fed up and react out of emotion, which only reinforces the attitudes of others. People see you as overreacting, overly sensitive, or as having a mental imbalance.

The Horns Effect labels targets unjustly

If you’re not careful, your perfectly normal reaction will be to become defensive (as every action produces a reaction). Although this is a normal response and you’re definitely not wrong for it, understand that bullies are good at taking something normal, spinning it to fit their narrative, and making it seem bad or abnormal to others.

Here’s another example: When things go wrong, people tend to cut anyone else some slack. They,ll assume that things were only out of their control.

On the other hand, if the incident happened to be within their control, others pass it off as, “everyone makes mistakes.”

However, it will be different if it’s you. People will only view your every action with distrust.

The popular belief will be that you caused the mishap deliberately or had an agenda. Sadly, people do this subconsciously.

In other words, if anyone else is late for class or work, people will only think, “Oh, traffic must have been bad.” “Maybe so-and-so had a stressful morning.”

On the other hand, if you’re the one who’s late for class, people would only accuse you of not having your crap together or having no respect for authority.

This is known as confirmation bias.

The horns effect produces confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias happens when people actively search for and “find” evidence that proves that their negative opinions of you are right. All the while, they will discount any proof that doesn’t support their views of you.

In short, if you are a victim of bullying, chances are that people will negatively judge everything you do.

Understand that, once bullies have tarnished your reputation, others will have a psychological need to “be right” about you. Moreover, this is what leads bystanders and others around you to assume that any negative gossip about you is true.

Sadly, this occurs despite a complete lack of evidence.

Whereas, if the gossip is about anyone else, people won’t believe any accusation of wrongdoing. They’ll only ignore it, even if there’s a mountain of evidence to back it up.

The Horns Effect leads to bias and prejudice

The Horns Effect leads teachers and supervisors to disqualify people who are well-deserving of and qualified for awards. For instance, if you’re qualify for an award, people will become so biased against you that they’ll select someone who doesn’t.

Moreover, they’ll punish you for a particular behavior while overlooking the same behavior in anyone else. People’s personal dislike, disrespect and hatred of you will influence this.

And if they happen to see any improvement or positive change in you, they won’t believe it. Or, they’ll assume it won’t last.

Others will only see it as, “Oh, she’s just on her best behavior to impress others and get them off her tail. She’ll be back to her bitch-self soon enough. Just give her time.”

At the same time, they may not see poor and unacceptable behavior in someone other than the you. With anyone else, people will say, “Oh, so-and-so would never have done that! That sounds like something (your name) would do!”

In other words, others will make excuses for someone else.

“I’m sure Becky didn’t mean to do XYZ.”

Or “Maybe Rhonda is just going through some things and that’s why she snapped and hit Chrissy with a baseball bat.”

The Horns Effect is the root of discrimination and prejudice just like the Halo Effect is the root of favoritism and partiality.

Under the horns effect, peers and superiors are less patient with you.

For example, teachers are less patient with you if you ask questions in class and you may eventually stop asking for help. Therefore, you won’t learn as much, won’t work as hard, and won’t make very high grades.

Consequently, this will only activate the teacher’s confirmation bias and reinforce her sullied opinion of you. She’ll only assume that you’re a lazy student.

If you’re under the thumb of the Horns Effect, others begin to see you as a terrible person. And they will block any opportunities for friendships, relationships, and success as word travels quickly.

Anytime you suffer bullying and it seems you can’t do anything right by anyone, you can bet that you’re under the spell of The Horns Effect.

An Unfair Disadvantage

It doesn’t matter whether you deserve the hatred others have toward you. The Horns Effect mars everyone’s interactions with you.

As a result, it leaves you feeling like you’re banging your head against a brick wall. Because though you may try, you can’t seem to get anywhere with people.

And because you’re unhappy, miserable, depressed and angry (and who wouldn’t be under those circumstances?), everyone will only feel justified in their hatred.

Therefore, once the Horn Effect takes hold and people form an image of you, it’s almost impossible to change. No matter what or how many good deeds you do, or how kind you are to others, people will see your goodness as a ploy to kiss-up and score brownie points.

the Horns Effect is A powerful tool for bullies

Understand that The Horns Effect is what bullies count on. And once the bullies complete their agenda of destroying your reputation, The Horns Affect automatically comes into play.

It’s tough to get others to change their first impressions of you. Though you can do it, it takes a truckload of patience and consistency.

Moreover, it takes a certain amount of pointing out your good qualities, hard work and successes to people. Ironically, this can backfire if you aren’t careful, because people may only think you’re trying to build yourself up.

Therefore, realize that any effort to effect change may do no good or make the situation worse. Because people naturally base their decisions and behavior on deeply hidden feelings. In other words, their actions toward you are subconscious.

Judgements Based on Emotions

Most people are either too lazy or too full-of-themselves to do any critical thinking. Therefore, they will rationalize any hateful behavior. Also, they will search for clues which confirm that their attitude, feelings and subsequent actions and behavior are justified.

Teachers will often grade student’s papers based on their biases. In other words, they rank a student’s essay based on how they perceive that student. If a teacher sees a student to be a lazy low performer, they’ll grade their assignments through that lens.

Understand that people don’t judge you for what’s actually there. They judge you from what they expect to be there.

Put another way, if they expect trouble to come from a particular place, then that’s where they’re going to look. Therefore, this brings me back to the subject. If people don’t like one thing about you, chances are they won’t like anything else about you, good or bad.

The Horns Effect: Who you are cancels out merit

Most ideas don’t stand on their own merits. People judge ideas based on who they come from. It’s a dark part of human nature.

The Horns and Halo Effects have a way of clouding people’s judgment of a person. People will make irrational beliefs because, again, they believe that the existence of one bad trait means that there are other unpleasant qualities.

Any time you are under the shadow of The Horns Effect, anything you say, accomplish, create or do is automatically dismissed without consideration of whether it’s genuine.

No matter who said it or did it, it’s either genuine or it isn’t, based on its own merit. It is what it is, no matter who it came from. A good idea is a good idea, even if it comes from the town whore. Whereas, a bad idea is a bad idea, even if it came from a pastor’s wife.

Unfortunately, you have little control over other’s perceptions and opinions of you. And, as mentioned earlier, people tend not to make judgements based on merit.

However, there are a few things you can do. One of which is to take care of yourself.

Do the things you love most and that fulfill your soul. Also, lean on and draw closer to the people who love you.

This is how you keep the spell of The Horns Effect from trashing your self-esteem.

This post is all about the horns effect so that unjustly disgraced victims of bullying can better understand what’s happening to them. Moreover, they can take steps to repair and salvage their confidence and psychological well-being.