TURKISH ADAPTATION OF THE SPECIESISM SCALE: A VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY STUDY

Speciesism is defined as assigning different moral worth to animals depending on their species and considering humans to be superior to animals. Thus, speciesism can be understood as a type of prejudice that is directed towards animals. In the current study, we aimed to adapt a short scale of speciesism (i.e., Speciesism Scale) and to test its psychometric properties among Turkish samples. In three samples (NSample-1 = 256, NSample-2 = 239, NSample-3 = 227), we demonstrated that the Speciesism Scale has acceptable reliability coefficients and a one-factor structure. We also found that the scale shows high test-retest reliability approximately after four weeks (Sample-1). Evidencing its convergent validity, the scale was positively associated with benevolent sexism (Sample-1), social dominance orientation, right wing authoritarianism, and system justification (Samples 1 and 2). Moreover, we showed that social dominance orientation consistently predicted higher speciesism, suggesting that speciesism has similar roots to prejudices among human groups. Finally, demonstrating the predictive validity, we found that speciesism predicts a preference for humans over animals when making decisions about volunteering time for charities that support either humans or animals (Samples 1 and 2). All the presented results held while controlling for demographics such as age, gender, education, socio-economic level, and political view. In conclusion, the current results align with previous research and confirm that the Speciesism Scale is a valid and reliable tool for measuring speciesism in samples from Turkey.