Humanness Scale Notes

Abstract

The research developed a new measure, the Humanness Scale (HS), to evaluate global and overt expressions of dehumanization by focusing on propositional beliefs linked to what people consider humanness. Three studies were conducted:

• Study 1: Developed a 13-item scale (α = 0.94) and explored its dimensionality (EFA) with $N = 277$.
• Study 2: Confirmed the unidimensional structure and analyzed the relationship between the HS and relevant variables such as an affective thermometer, a subtle and blatant prejudice scale, and a perceived social status scale with $N = 296$.
• Study 3: Contrasted the HS with other dehumanization measures in predicting social distance with $N = 290$.

Results indicated that the ingroup was perceived as the most human, with other groups distributed across the humanness dimension. HS scores were significantly but moderately related to other measures and were the best predictor of social distance. The research provides a new and easy way to measure dehumanization in everyday social perception.

Introduction

• Subtle measures of humanness have generated substantial research and theoretical models of dehumanization.
• Explicit expressions of prejudice and racism may render these measures insufficient for exploring open dehumanization processes.
• The research assesses people's direct attribution of humanness to different social groups, focusing on propositional beliefs about humanness.
• The new measure allows researchers to assess group dehumanization without comparing them to outgroups or other stimuli.
• This research proposes a direct, explicit, blatant, and propositional measure of humanness.

Associative and Propositional Measures of Dehumanization

• Dehumanization processes in intergroup perception are explored through:
  • Infrahumanization theory: differential association of secondary emotions to ingroups and outgroups.
  • Dual model of humanness: distinguishing uniquely human characteristics from human nature.
  • Attribution of mind: denying mental capacities (agency and experience).
• Propositional indicators of dehumanization have been used, such as items like 'Some people deserve to be treated like animals.'
• Kofta et al. (2014) distinguish between associative and propositional forms of dehumanization.
  • Associative: mental association of terms and ideas linked to ingroups and outgroups, requiring measurement of differential strength of association of human characteristics.
  • Propositional: knowledge in the form of propositions that describe how behaviors and characteristics are linked to the idea of being human.
• People have a naïve theory of humanity shaped by culturally shared meanings of human existence, including 'human potentials' that can be openly verbalized.
• Kteily et al. (2015) underline the importance of studying blatant dehumanization using the Ascent of Man (AoM) scale, which was more predictive than implicit measures.
• Blatant dehumanization remains unexplored in non-conflictive contexts.

The Present Research

• Dehumanization is one of the most harmful forms of prejudice and can be expressed subtly or blatantly.
• Most scales require comparison between ingroup and outgroup and association between human stimuli and members of evaluated groups.
• This research aims to develop a new measure to capture dehumanization by asking participants to assess the humanness of a target using a set of propositions about humanness beliefs.
• A short Likert-type humanness scale will allow obtaining a direct score of the amount of humanness attributed to a specific social group.
• The first step consisted of gathering propositions based on existing scales (theory of mind and human potentials) and framing three direct questions about humanness.
• A study was carried out to select items for a humanness measure and explore its dimensionality (Study 1).
• Study 2 aimed to confirm the unidimensionality of the scale and analyze whether it would allow distinction of the perception of humanness of several target groups and whether the score obtained is related to psychosocial variables.
• Study 3 contrasted the humanness scale with infrahumanization, a dual model-based measure, and other blatant measures of dehumanization and evaluated their predictive value on social distance.

Study 1

• The purpose was to develop a direct, explicit, and propositional measure of humanity, composed of statements about what it means to be human.
• This scale could be used without contrasting ingroup and outgroup.
• The first step aimed to encompass different meanings involved in a lay theory of humanness by creating 39 propositional stimuli based on pre-existing studies.
• The stimuli contained three direct questions about humanness, 18 statements related to mental capacities (Gray et al., 2007), and 18 potentials proposed by Kofta et al. (2014).
• The aims were:
  • Create a direct measure of humanness.
  • Select lay beliefs closely linked to direct statements about humanness.
  • Analyze the structure and internal consistency of the scale.
  • Test criterion validity, checking that the scores fit the basic principle of greater assignation of humanness to the ingroup.
  • Analyze the relationship between identification with the ingroup and the score on the humanness scale.

Method

• Participants: 238 university students from Granada and La Laguna.
• Procedure: Participants completed a questionnaire and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: ingroup vs. outgroup (Canary Islanders/Andalusians vs. Romanians).
• Instructions asked participants to indicate the extent to which people belonging to a group are distinguished by their ability to have different experiences, capacities, or ways of being.
• Direct measure of humanness consisted of three statements with an alpha of $α = 0.922$.
• Mind perception: mental capacities were used to prepare propositional statements, measuring experience and agency.
• Human potentials: included 18 statements relating to capacities and behaviors that are typically and/or specifically human.
• Identification with the ingroup was measured using four items with a Cronbach’s alpha of $α = 0.85$.

Results

• A direct index of humanness was created ($α = 0.92$) and correlated with each statement.
• Items with higher global correlations with the direct index of humanness (r > 0.52) were selected.
• Five mental capacities with the highest correlations were emotion recognition, communication, morality, joy, and appetence.
• Five human potentials with the highest correlations were having a rich inner life, being able to think about their life, striving to make their life meaningful, celebrating anniversaries of important events, and striving to understand the world.
• The initial 39 items were reduced to 13 propositional lay beliefs related to humanness.
• Exploratory factor analysis revealed a single factor that explained $57.67\%$ of the variance.
• The reliability of the scale with the 13 items selected is $α = 0.94$ for the total sample.
• Variance analysis (ANOVA) showed a main effect of the group type, $F(1, 234) = 55.96$, p < 0.001, $η^2_p = 0.23$.
• Participants gave higher scores to the ingroup on the humanness scale ($M = 4.49$, $SD = 0.71$) than to the outgroup ($M = 3.50$, $SD = 1.12$).
• A significant interaction was also obtained between group type and origin of the sample, $F(1, 234) = 6.08$, $p = 0.007$, $η^2 = 0.03$, showing differences in the evaluation of the outgroup in both samples.
• In the Andalusian sample, the score given to the outgroup is significantly higher ($M = 3.77$, $SD = 0.96$) than for the Canary Islander sample ($M = 3.25$, $SD = 1.20$); $F(1, 234) = 9.04$, $p = 0.003$, $η^2 = 0.04$.
• Bivariate correlation analysis showed a positive association between identification and the attribution of humanness to the ingroup ($r = 0.44$, p < 0.001).
• The correlation between identification with the ingroup and the attribution of humanness to the outgroup was very low and not significant ($r = -0.05$).

Discussion

• The main goal was to test and explore the dimensionality of propositional beliefs about humanness, posed as a Likert-type scale, to yield a direct and global score of perceived humanness.
• The study posits a 13-item scale with strong internal consistency, composed of items coming from different conceptual frameworks, which loaded on a single dimension in the exploratory factor analysis.
• Results reflected the usual ingroup/outgroup difference even when participants were not asked to make comparative judgments between both groups.
• An unexpected effect of the origin of the participants was also found; Canary Islanders awarded a lower score of humanness to the Romanian people than the Andalusians.
• Ingroup identification increases the perception of the humanness of the group itself, but there is no link to the humanness attributed to the outgroup.

Study 2

• To check the usefulness of the humanness scale for distinguishing between the perceived humanness of different social groups which vary in subtle and blatant social prejudice, status and global affection.
• This study will test whether the scale is sensitive to the difference in the perception of humanness between various social groups with different levels of social status and evaluation, in the expectation that the ingroup will have a higher humanness score.
• Dehumanization doesn't always imply antipathy or unpleasantness towards the outgroup.
• The score resulting from our scale to bear relative independence to the level of prejudice, but expect a stronger correlation with blatant than with subtle prejudice.
• Also expect a stronger correlation with a global measure of affection than with measures of subtle and blatant prejudice, which are more specific.

Method

• Participants: 296 Spanish-born participants who were contacted through the virtual study platforms of social psychology at the University of La Laguna.
• Instruments and procedure: We devised a single questionnaire composed of four scales (humanness, prejudice, affection and status), which were repeated for each of nine target groups.

Results

• To check the unidimensionality of the scale, a confirmatory factor analysis (SEM-CFA) was carried out through the R program with the ULL R-Toolbox (Hernández-Cabrera, 2021).
• Internal consistency was calculated overall (alpha = 0.94; Omega-hierarchical = 0.83), and for each nationality, all alphas were above 0.92 and Omega-hierarchical above 0.75, corroborating the unidimensionality of the scale
• Table 1 shows the mean scores and standard deviations for each group in humanity and in the dimensions of blatant and subtle prejudice, affection and status.
• The ingroup (Spanish) receives the highest score for humanness, followed by the French, Canadians, North Americans, Australians and South Americans. The lowest scores on the scale were given to the Germans, Moroccans and Romanians.
• Analysis of the correlations between the study variables shows that all correlations are very high and statistically significant (all ps < 0.001).
• Moreover, the associative strength between the measure of humanness and the score for Affection is remarkable, with an average correlation between the groups of r = 0.61. The average correlation between humanness and subtle prejudice and between humanness and status remains below 0.40.

Discussion

• The results of the second study confirmed the efficiency of the humanity scale described in the first study.
• Moreover, the unifactorial structure was corroborated with a different sample, supporting that this scale leads to obtaining a global humanness score as part of people’s perception of each social group.
  • (a) facilitates the distinction between the degree of perceived humanness for different social groups, even when there is no history of prior conflict;
  • (b) is sensitive to the variations in the perception of humanness not only in low-status groups but also in groups with perceived high status; and
  • (c) is more closely related to blatant than to subtle prejudice, as well as to a general measure of affect, which is congruent with the notion that this is an open and global measure of humanness.

Study 3

• The aim of this study was twofold. First, to contrast HS with other measures of humanness to determine the relationship between this new measure and pre-existing ones. Second, to determine its predictive power on six levels of social distance and group acceptance.
• Regarding the predictions, we hypothesize that HS will be related to previous measures, since they all seek to measure dehumanization, but more strongly with the most flagrant and global ones. On the other hand, we expect HS to have greater explanatory power over different levels of social distance than the other measures.

Method

• This study involved 290 Spanish-born participants who were contacted through the virtual study platforms of social psychology at the University of La Laguna.
• Instruments and procedure: We designed a single questionnaire composed of six scales: Humanness Scale, Infrahumanization, Dual model measure, Ascent of Man, Bastian et al.’s (2013) two direct questions and Social Distance.

Results

• Table 2 shows descriptive analysis and reliability of all measures used. A repeated-measures ANOVA was carried out to contrast the differences in the perception of the humanness of the different nationalities, obtaining a significant effect of the factor countries (F(3, 867) = 57.20; p < 0.001).
• To verify the relations of HS with the other measures, a correlation analysis showed significant relationships between all the measures (Table 3). HS was more strongly related to the Human category of the dual model (r = 0.61, p < 0.01), sharing 36.97% of the variance.
• To study the predictive power of measures over social distance, a stepwise regression analysis was performed. The model accounts for 30.9% of variance (F(5, 864) = 78.76; p < 0.001). Table 4 shows the coefficients of retained variables.
• Humanness is the best predictor with the highest beta (0.32), explaining an exclusive 6% of the variance of social distance

Discussion

• This study showed, as hypothesized, that HS was significantly associated with previous measures of dehumanization, showing that they are closely related but focused on different components or perspectives of dehumanization. More importantly, HS shows the strongest explanatory power over social distance.
• The maintenance of the same pattern of results as in previous studies supports the consistency of this measure across different samples.

General Discussion

• Dehumanization could be considered as one of the worst forms of prejudice
• Research has suggested that people spontaneously gauge the humanness of others
• The scale proposed here is close to the notion of a lay theory of humanness, since it is shaped by a set of beliefs on what it means to be human.
• This scale focuses on the propositional representations of humanness that laypeople maintain in their daily social interactions.
• The humanness scale proposed here puts the focus not on perceptual components but on a set of lay beliefs that are linked with what people consider humanity.