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How human are you? The humanness scale ( ¿Cuán humano eres tú? La escala de humanidad )

2023; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 38; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02134748.2022.2139062

1579-3680

María-Dolores Morera, Naira Delgado, María-Nieves Quiles, Rocío Martínez, Stephany Hess Medler,

Behavioral Health and Interventions

The main goal of this research was to develop a new measure focused on a set of propositional beliefs linked to what people consider humanness to be, to evaluate global and overt expressions of dehumanization. Study 1 ( N = 277) was aimed to build a scale that included 13 items (α = .94) and explore its dimensionality (EFA). Study 2 ( N = 296) was aimed to confirm its unidimensional structure and to analyse the relationship between the humanness scale (HS) and relevant variables as an affective thermometer, a subtle and blatant prejudice scale and a perceived social status scale. Study 3 ( N = 290) contrasted the HS with other measures of dehumanization on the prediction of social distance. Results showed that the ingroup was perceived as being the most human group, while the other groups were distributed across the humanness dimension. Moreover, HS scores were significantly but moderately related to the other measures and the best predictor of social distance. This research provides a new and easy way of measuring dehumanization in everyday social perception.