Technoism: A new form of prejudice and discrimination

History has demonstrated that people discriminate against other humans, groups, and species because of pure “otherness” rather than merits. This paper explores the idea that some humans evince technoism— a form of prejudice and discrimination against technology; people dismiss objective performance criteria in favor of general human superiority beliefs. In twelve studies (seven reported in supplement; N = 3,274) and multiple contexts, we find technoism varies among people and introduces bias in responding to technology, with negative consequences for both oneself (Studies 1, 2) and fellow humans (Studies 3, 4). Thus, as a form of discrimination, technoism poses risks to the welfare of individuals and society. As such, understanding technoism is required to move society toward a fact-based instead of a prejudice-based evaluation of technology. By revealing technoism as a construct, this paper offers a first contribution to this issue and opens a new perspective for discourse on human-technology interaction.