An active inference explanation of discriminatory cognition with regard to social attitudes and harmful behaviour

This paper offers an active inference narrative that considers deeply-held social attitudes and beliefs in relation to the cognitive concept of zones of bounded surprisal (ZBS) proposed by Manrique and Walker (2023). It is argued that narrow ZBS band-widths characterise the discriminatory minds of people who see themselves as an in-group. They tend not to be indignant or outspoken, but, instead, acquiescent and silent, when they witness poor behaviour of those whom otherwise they regard as members of their in-group. Plausibly, when such behaviour harms other people, as, for instance, in racist or gender-based violence, its perpetrators have a very narrow ZBS band-width: one that likely is a characteristic of dehumanising minds. Because such perpetrators see themselves as members of an in-group with entitlement to control aspects of society, they humiliate or abuse out-groups to which they assign others, and have no compunction about violating their dignity or human rights. We briefly consider policies that could lessen the unwelcome social repercussions of the behaviour of people with discriminatory and dehumanising minds.