This scale measures how mechanical, unemotional, cold, and robot-like an employee is perceived to have acted while performing their job. Sun, Wang, Hoegg, and Dahl (2023) used it across several studies and pretests examining dehumanization in embarrassing service encounters.
7-point scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree)
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Reliability ranged from .79 to .92 across administrations, exceeding .80 in at least one study (Sun et al. 2023, p. 654; web appendix, p. 6). A factor analysis in one study showed the items loading with a separate mechanistic-dehumanization measure but not with a related animalistic-dehumanization measure, offering some preliminary discriminant validity support. The authors created the scale by drawing heavily on key words from an established human-nature/dehumanization framework. The blank should be filled with a name, description, or pronoun for the focal employee.
Sun, Yixia, Xuehua Wang, JoAndrea Hoegg, and Darren W. Dahl (2023), "How Consumers Respond to Embarrassing Service Encounters: A Dehumanization Perspective," Journal of Marketing Research, 60 (4), 646-664.
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