Machines As Social Entities (MASE) Scale: Validation of a New Scale Measuring Beliefs in the Sociality of Intelligent Machine Agents

Abstract

Researchers examining the social relationship between humans and machine agents have been faced with a series of obstacles, mainly due to the lack of appropriate study tools. To address this need for measurement toolkits, this article examines the development and validation of the Machines As Social Entities (MASE) scale. MASE was created to measure people’s beliefs in machine agents as social entities. Together, the results from a series of studies, including exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), demonstrate that the MASE is a reliable and valid measure. Potential uses of the scales are then discussed.