Automated Analysis of Narrative: NarrCat and the Identification of Infrahumanization Bias Within Text

The Narrative Categorical Content Analysis toolkit (abbreviated as NarrCat) decomposes narratives into distinct, quantifiable psychological processes. In this study, NarrCat was applied to analyze New Zealand’s historical “Speeches from the Throne” from 1854 to 1913 (68 speeches). Specifically, NarrCat’s cognition, emotion, and intention modules were applied to analyze patterns of psychological perspective, or psychological states, attributed to various groups in the speeches (Māori, British settlers, and British governing elites). This allowed us to examine infrahumanization bias, as denoted by patterns of language, in New Zealand’s governing discourses during colonization. Results showed that Māori were infrahumanized compared with the British settlers overall. However, only British Governing elites were attributed significantly greater agency (i.e., cognition and intention) in inferences of their psychological perspective compared with other groups. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed through the lens of infrahumanization theory, as well as colonizing discourses like the British Enlightenment and Good Māori–Bad Māori discourse.