Evaluate the collective function of references cited together in a given text segment.
Classify their combined role into one of the following categories: 'method', 'background', or 'result'.

Text:Since Ascent dehumanization is more closely related to animalistic (vs. mechanistic) dehumanization (Kteily et al., 2015, Study 5), we excluded these items from our blatant dehumanization composite.
Category: