The Construction and Validation of the Belief in Human Essentialism Scale

• Author / Creator

  Sharp, Michael

• Although many researchers have incorporated concepts related to the human essence in their research, there has yet been a measure to quantify the degree to which one believes that there is a human essence. In the current studies, a belief in human essentialism scale (BHES) is developed, validated, and tested for moderation effects in the relation of two studies. Study 1 utilized a series of mass-testing procedures to analyze the psychometric properties, factor structure, reliability, and validity of the BHES. Study 2 found that high levels of BHE predicted perceptions of creepiness elicited from an android. Study 3, contrary to what was hypothesized, was unable to find a moderating effect of BHE on suggested prison sentence for a perpetrator when participants read an animalistic (vs. non-animalistic) description of an aggravated assault. After postulating potential reasons for the null findings in Study 3, I provide an overall discussion of the BHES, its validity, and its potential utility.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Human consideration
  • Humanlike representations
  • Human essence
  • Dehumanization

• Graduation date

  Fall 2015

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3CZ32D08

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.