A New Look of Dehumanization in Work Domain: The Relationship between Communication Means and Disrespect to Deliveryman

The present study provides a new aspect to understand the disrespect to deliveryman. A survey was conducted based on the hypothesis which assumed that the disrespect is caused by the indirect communication via technology, mediated by mechanistic dehumanization. Using cashier as the representative of jobs which adopt traditional face-to-face communication, we tested the dehumanization of deliveryman through four measurements and then tested the disrespect degree by giving an unpleasant scenario. The result suggests that people significantly dehumanize deliveryman more in two measurements. Additionally, the dehumanization degrees of these two measurements are positively correlated with disrespect degrees. In general, the finding provides a new aspect to view the dehumanization in the work domain.