Standing By and Losing Humanity: Self–Other Asymmetries in Moral Evaluation and Dehumanization Following Prosocial Inaction

Can it merely failing to help make people seem less human? Across four preregistered studies ( N = 1856), using autobiographical recall (Study 1) and hypothetical scenarios (Studies 2–4), we found that prosocial inaction elicited greater dehumanization and less favourable moral evaluations than action. Yet these judgements depended on who was evaluated. Following inaction, others were judged more harshly than oneself in humanness and moral character, but not reliably in evaluations of the act itself; no comparable self–other asymmetry emerged following action. We found no reliable evidence that relational closeness moderated negative evaluations of passive bystanders. Moral evaluations also showed indirect associations with dehumanization, with Study 4 supporting a stronger person‐based than act‐based association even after accounting for overall impression. Together, these findings extend dehumanization research beyond overt wrongdoing to everyday failures to help, suggesting that prosocial inaction provides moral information about both character and humanness, especially when evaluating others.