IIntentionality constitutes an essential phenomenon of psychic life (Brentano, 1874; Husserl, 1917). Its disturbance can be expected in schizophrenia and depression.

To study how such fundamental psychic function is altered in these two diseases.

Phenomenological method allows to deepen in the structure of complex phenomena. Husserl’s analysis of “consciousness of immanent time” helps in studying how intentionality functions in schizophrenia. In depression, we appeal to own previous phenomenological researches revealing three fundamental features: a specific change in body experience; inability to act, feel, think, etc. (inhibition); and alteration, inversion, and suspension of biorhythms.

The intentional arc connects the beginning and the end of a phrase. This arc will keep tenser, the bigger is the potency of the aim of my speech and my capacity to exclude inadequate associations. In schizophrenia intentional arc expands and appear “lax associations” (Bleuler, 1911) and “overinclusion” (Cameron, 1968). Fuchs (2005) argues that also the rest of schizophrenic symptoms represent disturbances of intentionality, e. g., in paranoid ideas an inversion occurs. In depression, its three essential phenomena can be interpreted as different forms of intentionality failure: the compromise of lived body and its consequent loss of transparence lead to incapacity of projecting oneself toward action and future. “Not being able to” (inhibition) means a detention of intentionality. Closely related appears the inability to anticipate. Finally, the alteration, inversion or suspension of biorhythms is temporal and insofar implicates a disturbance of intentionality.

The main features of schizophrenia and depression represent specific forms of alteration of intentionality.

No significant relationships.

Perinatal death includes losses such as ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths. Perinatal loss has well documented negative effects on the health of the bereaved parents. Early pregnancy loss (EPL) is the spontaneous death of a fetus within the first 20 weeks of gestation.

To describe a clinical case of disenfranchised grief following EPL and to review the literature.

We reviewed the clinical file of a patient presenting to the psychiatry outpatient clinic with disenfranchised grief. We conducted a non-systematic review on PubMed and Google Scholar.

A 29-years-old female patient presents to the outpatient clinic with depressive symptoms and thoughts of death. The symptoms had begun 4 months earlier, following the loss of pregnancy at 14 weeks. She felt her grief was not accepted by her family and social network. Progressively, her relationships deteriorated, and she felt more and more isolated. She experienced marked difficulty in caring for her older child. Compared to other types of mourning, the loss of a child is associated with grief experience that is particularly severe and complicated. Despite the high prevalence of EPL, many women suffer in silence due to the common belief these losses are insignificant and may develop complicated grief.

Perinatal loss of an infant has the potential to have a large impact on the mental health of the bereaved parents. Literature on the efficacy of different interventions is still scarce. Further studies are necessary on prevention strategies and interventions for parents already suffering from complicated grief or depressive disorders.

No significant relationships.

Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (anti-NMDA-R) encephalitis is well-characterised autoimmune encephalitis with prominent psychiatric manifestations, neurological manifestations like speech dysfunction, seizures, dyskinesias and other movement abnormalities, decreased level of consciousness and autonomic instability. This disorder affects primarily children and adults up to 45 years. Females are 4 times more common than males and may have association with ovarian teratoma.

To identify anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis based on clinical features, facilitate early screening and relevant investigations to prevent delay in treatment.

A case study of 36 year old female presented with clinical manifestations of autoimmune encephalitis syndrome.

Diagnosis confirmed by presence of NMDA receptor antibodies in serum and cerebrospinal fluid.

Early recognition of clinical features of Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and early initiation of treatment has shown to improve outcomes, speed recovery and reduce the risk of relapses.

No significant relationships.

We present the case of a 34-year-old female patient with no prior psychiatric record who was treated in our outpatient department due to persecutory delusions of recent onset. The patient had a history of refractory temporal epilepsy since adolescence and underwent a temporal lobe resection 4 month prior to the appearance of her symptoms.

Temporal lobe resection is a well-established technique to treat refractory temporal lobe epilepsy in which psychotic symptoms are an infrequent complication; the most frequent being cognitive sequelae, visual field defects and depression. According to several sources, this symptomatology may be underdiagnosed and undereportend and there have been a number of case reports and series of cases which describe the aforementioned entity.

A case report is presented alongside a review of the relevant literature regarding cases of secondary psychosis after brain surgery.

During her treatment we administered olanzapine up to doses of 7.5mg per day because of the risk of reducing the convulsive threshold. We observed a marked improvement and the disappearance of the delusions. The dose of olanzapine has been maintained for a year with no important side-effects and without a relapse in symptoms.

Psychotic symptoms as a complication of temporal lobe resection may be more frequent than what was thought in the past. It is important to study this phenomenon more in-depth because the symptoms may remain undetected and present worse outcomes given that there are effective treatments which could ameliorate the condition.

No significant relationships.

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) and Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) are two primary restrictive eating disorders described in DSM-5, characterized both of them by insufficient food intake. This behavior In ARFID is not driven by weight and shape concerns that tipify AN. While there are several studies that highlight the presence of mentalizing difficulties in AN, there are still no data about mentalizing profile in ARFID.

The aim of this study was to better characterize the mentalizing profile of AN and ARFID children and adolescent.

Two groups of AN or ARFID outpatients (15+15), aged 6 to 18 years, were assessed by Alexythimia Questionnaire for Children (AQC) and Toronto Alexythimia Scale-20 (TAS-20) to evaluate alexythimia; by Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Basic Empathy Scale (BES) to assess empathy; by NEPSY-II social perception subtests to evaluate Theory of Mind and Emotion recognition. Exclusion criteria were the presence of intellectual disability, pervasive developmental disorders and binge eating behavior (eating disorder other than AN or ARFID).

Preliminary results showed different mentalizing profiles between ARFID and AN patients, with differences in the score for affective empathy, lower in ARFID than in AN patients while the score for alexythimia traits resulted higher in AN population.

By our results, mentalization impairment appeared trans-diagnostic across several eating disorders. This first result should be further improved to better analyze this construct in order to develop effective clinical intervention to improve the subject’s affective regulation.

No significant relationships.

In DRC, the North Kivu province has been plagued by recurring humanitarian crises for nearly two decades, with multiple displacements of populations triggered low intensity armed inter-communal conflicts spread throughout nearly all territories. 818,605 people (displaced, returnees and indigenous) affected by these movements are in alarming psychosocial vulnerability.

In 2019, the NGO Action contre la Faim started a psychological intervention with the objective to contribute to reducing the vulnerability of conflict-affected populations.

Participants have been identified through psychoeducation sessions in the community in which people recognizing corresponding symptoms in themselves were evaluated through a short one-on-one interview. Persons identified as particularly in distress, including those who have experienced gender-based violence, have been involved in a short group therapeutic intervention. Two different options have been proposed in order to evaluate the most effective for the specific context: six sessions with a weekly or bi-weekly frequency.

767 people participated in the psychosocial intervention, 457 with weekly frequency and 310 bi-weekly. The measures of post traumatic symptoms (PCL-5), anxiety and depression (HAD) and resilience (CD-RISC) show that the two approaches have the same positive effects. This is very important in volatile contexts with difficulties of access to the population due to security problems.

The fact that even a short intervention focused on a bi-weekly frequency, can reduce the distress and increase the psychological resilience of populations living in contexts of conflict, gives us the possibility of intervening in areas with limited access, while guaranteeing therapeutic efficacy.

Cancer and its treatment often impose physical and psychological consequences. Children with cancer are not only at a risk of adverse events resulting from medical procedures but also severe effects on their social and mental health as a result of its treatment. Depression being one of the most common psychiatric disorders associated with cancer in children and adolescents. The current study aims to provide evidence of an easy and inexpensive intervention that can be used in oncology patients in a low resource setting to help maintain mental health stability in pedriatric patients..

To examine the effectiveness of therapeutic group art therapy, in reducing depression scores in children with cancer.

The study is quasi experimental, through convinient sampling data of fifteen children in initial stage of thier treatment were selected. They were divided into two groups experimental and controlled through random allocation. Three sessions of forty minutes of group art therapy was given in experimental group, in control normal treatment was provided excluding group art therapy. Childhood Depression Scale (CDI) was used in both group as pre and post test to determine the depression level.

The results shows a positive change in the level of depression in experimental group as compared to controlled group.

Group art therapy is an effective and inexpensive way of reducing depression level of paediatric leukemia patients that can be used by oncology healthcare centres worldwide with trained mental healthcare professionals in order to maintain positive treatment results of cancer.

Adolescent self-harm in Europe is a major public health challenge and shares a risk continuum with suicide. Recent research demonstrates a strong risk correlation with attempting suicide in the community-based adolescent self-harm population group, similar to research findings for populations in health setting-based research. In the UK increasing rates in hospital admissions represent the “tip of the iceberg” within the community, with potentially two thirds of the population group not accessing health services for support. This brings many health risks, including an increased suicide risk. Finding a solution to these issues requires a preventative intervention approach for young people, including community-based delivery to address service access barriers. Secondary schools are posited as key settings where this type of support could be delivered. But emerging UK research demonstrates challenges in completing adolescent self-harm research with young people in schools.

This paper centres on a current adolescent self-harm preventative intervention research project in Cardiff University. It focuses on ethical research practice in community-based adolescent self-harm research.

This paper appraises some of the core ethical issues, challenges and their management in completing adolescent self-harm prevention intervention research in secondary school settings in Wales. It also provides an overview of the project’s innovative safety protocol design.

This project was successful in managing the potential risks to the school-based adolescent research participants.

This work helps address some of the current research barriers to completing adolescent self-harm prevention intervention research in schools, to facilitate shared solutions to the urgent public health challenge of adolescent self-harm.

Schizophrenia is characterized by long hospitalizations and a recurrent use of chronic and acute psychiatric care.

The aim of this study was to analyze schizophrenia related hospitalizations in Portugal.

A retrospective observational study was conducted using a nationwide hospitalization database containing all hospitalizations registered in Portuguese public hospitals from 2008 to 2015.Hospitalizations with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia were selected and schizophrenia subtypes were grouped using the International Classification of Diseases version 9, Clinical Modification(ICD-9-CM) codes of diagnosis 295.xx.

There was a total of 25,385 hospitalizations in public hospitals of Portugal between 2008 and 2015 with a primary diagnosis of Schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. A total of 14,279 patients were hospitalized during the study period with an average of 1,78 hospitalizations episodes per patient in the 8-year interval(0.22 hospitalizations/patient/year). 68.0% of the hospitalizations occurred in male patients and the median length of stay was 18.0 days. Mean hospitalization charges were 3,509.7€ per hospitalization, summed to a total charge of 89.1M€. Throughout the study period there was a significant linear decrease in the number of hospitalizations (r = 0.940; B= -47.488; p = 0.001). The last year of the study(2015) had the lowest number of hospitalizations with a total of 2,958 (vs. 3,314 in 2008). When adjusted for the yearly population, there was also a decrease of the number of hospitalizations per 100,000 inhabitants from 31.39 to 28.56 hospitalizations per 100,000 inhabitants between 2008 and 2015, respectively.

We found differences in hospitalization characteristics by gender, age and primary diagnosis.

No significant relationships.

Detecting warning signs of suicide attempts is a particular difficult task. However, people who plan to commit suicide almost always announce it to someone in some way.

Aims of this study were to describe signs preceding the suicide attempt in a group of suicidal persons and its links with suicidal recurrence.

It was a retrospective study that included all the patients who attempted suicide during the period from May 1st, 2009 to September 25th, 2020 and who were referred to the psychiatry department of the regional hospital of Gabes. Sociodemographic and clinical data as well as suicidal attempts characteristics were assessed.

278 patients were included (female=78.1%), with mean age of 26. The common suicidal attempt method was intentional drug intoxication (67.8%). At least, one clinical manifestation was reported by 75.2% of suicide patients. The most common signs were the tendency to isolation (47.1%), a change in character or behavior (46.6%), thoughts of death (29.6%), anxiety or agitation (24.8%) and recent worsening of the pre-existing psychiatric symptoms (24.3%). Suicidal recurrence affected 24.8% of patients. It was correlated to the presence of a mental disorder (p<10-3), the presence of reflections on death (p=0.02), the onset of a state of anxiety or agitation (p<10-3), recent worsening of pre-existing psychiatric symptoms (p = 0.001) and verbal expression of suicidal thoughts (p<10-3).

The pre-suicidal syndrome is frequently heralded by changes in the patient’s character or behavior. Some suicidal warning signs are associated with the risk of suicidal recurrence.

No significant relationships.

A standardized approach to reduce or decrease the tobacco consumption is not performed. It is being used as a medium to socialize having an educational character on nursing and medical relationship.

Current cessation program are thought for patients without relevant cognitive impairments. Evidence about alternative management for this patient subgroup was collected.

This investigation examined the state of the implementation of nicotine cessation therapy for chronic psychiatric patients in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. German- and English-speaking publications since 2010 were selected. 12 different reviews and control trials were included.

Inpatient experiences from maximum hospital care in Germany have been published in the last 10 years, but mostly by oncologist departments in collaboration with pulmonologists and cardiologists showing a poor interest from psychiatrists, not even for harm reduction strategies in patients with severe mental illness. Therefore, the identification and treatment of nicotine addiction remains very low in patients with mental health conditions. Cognitive and pharmacological interventions are not covered by the German health system.

Latest evidence suggests that more flexible, open-ended, combination approaches of pharmacotherapy and counselling may be more successful. It will hence contribute to redressing the significant health and social inequities experienced by this. population sub-group as a consequence of tobacco smoking.

COVID-19 as a pandemic has disproportionately affected older adults, including those with dementia. The effects on health and social care systems has necessitated a rapid-response approach to care planning and decision-making in this population, with reflexivity and responsiveness to changing individual and system needs at its core. In light of this, a decision-making tool to help families of persons with dementia was developed using a combination of qualitative data and evidence synthesis.

To develop a decision-aid using a combination of assessment and evidence-gathering methods for families of persons with dementia.

Semi-structured interviews with helpline staff from national end-of-life and supportive care organisations formed the basis of the tool design. Co-design with people living with dementia, current and former carers and experts in general practice and social care shaped the next stage. Simultaneously, a rapid review of current evidence on making decisions with older people at the end of life was undertaken.

Output from interviews covered many topics, including trust, agency and confusion in making decisions in the context of COVID-19. The rapid review of existing evidence highlighted the need to consider both process and outcome elements of decision-making.

Combining different sources and forms of evidence was efficient and valuable in creating a novel decision-making tool for persons with dementia and their families within the context of COVID-19. The decision-aid covered care planning, caregiver support systems, access to information and contingency considerations. Upon publication, the tool was adopted by NHS England and other leading healthcare organisations.

No significant relationships.

Studies have suggested that stress predicts both body dissatisfaction (BD) and disordered eating (DE) patterns. However, the mechanisms of this process are not entirely clear and could be elucidated through further exploration in daily life.

The purpose of this study was to 1) explore the concurrent and lagged relationship between stress and BD in the daily life of individuals with differing levels of trait eating pathology (EP) and 2) to investigate whether maladaptive coping moderated these relationships.

107 female participants (mean age = 26.92) completed an online survey about stress, coping strategies and trait EP. Participants used a smartphone app to report on state stress, BD and DE six times a day for seven days

Individuals with elevated trait EP experienced a significantly higher frequency of stress events (b = 0.04). Participants’ use of maladaptive coping significantly increased state stress (b = 0.41), but was not moderated by EP. Participants’ state stress and BD measured at the same time point (concurrent assessment) were significantly related (b = 0.13). Either stress or BD at the previous time point did not significantly predict changes in the other (lagged assessment, b = 0.02, b = -0.09, respectively). The aforementioned state-based associations were not moderated by trait EP

Women with more severe EP were found to experience stress more frequently. Maladaptive coping strategies were related to stress, but not moderated by EP. The association between stress and BD from concurrent but not lagged assessment highlights the importance of assessing and targeting momentary stress levels.

No significant relationships.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) provides a framework rooted in patient-centered care and the biopsychosocial model that facilitates a comprehensive description of a person’s health and their level of societal participation. The importance of the ICF for assessing the needs of individuals with mental health problems (MHP) and intellectual disabilities (ID) is growing, especially in the social medicine.

To describe the benefits and limitations of the ICF in clinical practice, pertaining to the assessment of healthcare needs and societal participation in persons with MHP and ID.

Comprehensive literature search in medical databases using the Keywords: ICF, mental health, intellectual disabilities, social and occupational participation.

ICF-based instruments such as the Mini-ICF-APP, with which impairments and competencies in social and occupational participation can be described, are playing an increasingly important role in healthcare and rehabilitation. In Germany, for example, in accordance with the Federal Participation Act, the entitlement to disability support benefits is assessed using ICF-based instruments, which therefore play a decisive role in social medical care.

The functional descriptions of the ICF provide the opportunity for a standardized, yet individualized assessment of medical needs, general health and societal participation, thus facilitating the provision of a comprehensive package of care and support for people with disabilities. ICF-Core Sets and the Mini-ICF-APP are effective tools to describe level of function. It would be clinically valuable to further develop these instruments for use in persons with ID and MHP in the field of social medicine.

No significant relationships.

Despite being one of the oldest treatments in the field of Psychiatry, Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is used worldwide for various severe and treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders, establishing itself as one of the fastest and most effective treatments.

The primary aim of this study was to describe a nationwide epidemiological perspective of the use of ECT in hospitalized psychiatric patients. The secondary aims were to characterize clinical and sociodemographic trends of hospitalized patients who needed ECT.

A retrospective-observational study was conducted using an administrative database which gathered all hospitalizations registered in Portuguese public hospitals from 2008 to 2015. We selected all hospitalizations with a procedure code 94.27 - Other electroshock therapy defined by the International Classification of Diseases version-9, Clinical Modification.The variables included in the study were birth date, sex, residence address, primary and secondary diagnoses, admission date, discharge date, length of stay (LoS), discharge status from each single hospitalization episode.

There were a total of 879 hospitalizations with ECT during the 8-year period of the study. Most of the hospitalizations occurred in female patients (53.4 vs 46.6%), belonging to the age group of 51-70 years old, with a mean age of 50.5 years old. The median LoS was 43.0 days with an IQR of 27.0-68.0 days. The specific primary diagnosis most frequent in all hospitalizations was Major depressive disorder, recurrent episode representing 19.6% of all ECT related hospitalizations.

In Portugal most of the patients who received ECT were women above middle age, and depressive disorders were the most common indication.

There is a considerable overlap of psychotic and mood symptoms in patients with severe mental disorders, and a large proportion of patients meeting diagnostic criteria experience significant mood symptoms. The diagnosis of schizophrenia – schizoaffective type /schizoaffective disorder has been a part of the Diagnostic and statistical manual since the DSM-I. Even if the need for a diagnosis capturing this particular clinical picture obviously is needed, the agreement about when to use the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder as well as the diagnostic reliability is low. There is an agreement that the diagnosis covers episodes with an overlap between a psychotic episode meeting the A criteria for schizophrenia and a major mood episode where the psychotic symptoms continue after the end of the mood symptoms. Given the prevalence of depression in schizophrenia, some episodes, however, meet the criteria for schizoaffective disorders while others do not. The DSM-5 thus argues that the pattern of overlapping symptoms should be present in the majority of episodes. Keeping the cross-sectional approach favoured by previous versions of the DSM and the ICD will here continue to spread diagnostic confusion.

No significant relationships.

Schizophrenia pathogenesis is known to be associated with chronic low-grade inflammation. Inflammation can be caused by extracellular histones that are released from cells due to apoptosis dysfunction. It can also be accompanied by the formation of natural catalytic immunoglobulins that bind and hydrolyze histones.

To investigate the ability to hydrolyze various histones by polyclonal IgGs from serum of patients with schizophrenia.

We recruited 50 patients (28 men and 22 women) with a verified diagnosis of paranoid or simple schizophrenia and 25 healthy individuals (13 men and 12 women) in our study. IgG preparations were obtained by affinity chromatography and analyzed by SDS-PAGE and MALDI MS. Catalytic activity of IgGs were revealed by the degree of hydrolysis of five histones using SDS-PAGE. To prove that antibodies exhibit histone-hydrolyzing activity, we used rigorous generally accepted criteria. Statistical analysis was performed in Origin 2019.

IgGs of patients are shown to bind and hydrolyze various histones with high efficiencies. The IgGs histone-hydrolyzing activity level, depending on the type of histone (H1, H2a, H2b, H3, H4), was statistically significantly 6–20 times higher than that of healthy individuals (Fig. 1). However, only 21% of patients with schizophrenia had IgGs with very high activity. The IgGs activity level correlated with PANSS General scale.

Fig.1. Histone-hydrolyzing activity of IgG.

We suggest that histone-hydrolyzing antibodies may play a compensatory role in schizophrenia because removal of extracellular histones minimizes the inflammatory responses. Therefore, such IgGs may be the link between inflammation and humoral immunity, and also be a promising biomarker.

This work was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research under grant 20-015-00156. E.A.E. is the recipient of the fellowship of the President of the Russian Federation (SP-2258.2019.4).

Lithium has been the mainstay therapy for bipolar disorder (BD) for decades, but there is little consensus regarding its possible effects on kidney function and the rate of change in estimated glomerular flow rate (eGFR) over time.

To describe patients with BD regarding their renal function and their sociodemographic and clinical characteristics potentially related to eGFR.

This is a cross-sectional study with an initial sample of 95 patients with BD. Multiple linear regression analysis was applied to investigate the association of lithium serum levels and their duration of treatment with eGFR, independent of confounding factors. We excluded patients without data regarding any of the variables from the final model.

In the multivariable analysis, the model was composed of eight variables (Figure 1). The mean duration of treatment was 10 years (Figure 2). Serum lithium level was associated with low levels of eGFR (β = -18.06 [-34.70 - -1.42], p = 0.03); among the other variables, only age remained associated with it (β = -0.72 (-1.10 - -0.33), p = <0.01).

Note: *P<0.05

We replicated the correlation between serum lithium levels and eGFR. Our results contradict the claim that duration of treatment with lithium correlates with lower levels of eGFR, while suggesting serum lithium level could be a possible early marker of lithium nephrotoxicity.

No significant relationships.

Eating disorders (ED) are characterized by perturbed eating habits or behaviors (APA, 2013). Even if treatments are available, they need to be more adapted to ED (Monthuy-Blanc, 2018). A complementary approach as yoga or mindfulness demonstrated positive effects with ED, such as an augmentation of mindfulness while eating (Rachel, Ivanka, Amanda, & Carlene, 2013), a better body satisfaction (Beccia, Dunlap, Hanes, Courneene, & Zwickey, 2018; Neumark-Sztainer, MacLehose, Watts, Pacanowski, & Eisenberg, 2018) and less preoccupation with food (Carei, Fyfe-Johnson, Breuner, & Brown, 2010). As the effects of yoga and mindfulness vary between the different ED and different uses, it is difficult to generalize the results obtained about the efficacy of yoga or mindfulness with ED.

A scoping review is actually done to map the evidence about the use (length, intensity, frequency) of yoga and mindfulness among ED and their effects.

The realization of the scoping review is based on the Joanna Briggs Institute Methodological Framework(Peters, Godfrey, McInerney, Baldini Soares, Khalil, & Parker, 2017). Research will be done in the following databases: CINAHL, PsycInfo, PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, EBM Reviews/Cochrane. Different types of papers are going to be included and a content analysis is going to be done among the extracted data.

Preliminary results of the scoping review are going to be presented.

Among the different treatments used with ED, yoga and mindfulness have demonstrated positive effects. These approaches as part of integrative health are helpful to improve physical and mental health of individuals suffering from ED.

The derogation and violence associated with describing others as less than human is documented in a wide range of research (e.g., Bandura, 1992; Optow, 1990). However, this research has only explored one side of the social comparisons that humanity can evoke. Integrating dehumanization research and that of social comparison, which suggests the different effects of upward and downward targets, we explore social comparison which lowers human nature and therefore raises the target (Suls et al., 2002; Suls et al., 2018).

While dehumanization places others below humanity, we explore hyper-humanization which places humanity below other comparison classes. When humanity is characterized as a low social comparison class, this should lead people to reintegrate transgressors, evoke forgiveness and reduce revenge motives.

To test this hypothesis 577 participants viewed a vignette about a social transgression and completed the benevolence and avoidance subscales of the TRIM (McCullough et al., 2006). We manipulated dehumanization and hyper-humanization using a conversational prompt which asked participants to elaborate on descriptions of the social transgressor. In the dehumanization condition the target was described as “barely human”, and in the hyper-humanization condition the target was described as “only human”.

Using a mixed-model ANOVA, results indicate that in the rehumanization condition benevolence increased (F=5.30, p<.01) and avoidance decreased (F=4.75, p<.01) relative to dehumanization and controls.

While lower groups below humanity may facilitate genocide and other social ills, other forms of social comparison with humanity may act to restore relationships and facilitate forgiveness.