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Psychology

Anthropomorphism

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Examining The Relation Between Anthropomorphism And Theory Of Mind, Noah Paulson Jan 2024

Examining The Relation Between Anthropomorphism And Theory Of Mind, Noah Paulson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Two ways people think about the mental state of others is through anthropomorphism and theory of mind. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human-like capacities to non-human entities, such as ascribing mental and internal states (Waytz et al., 2013). Theory of mind is the ability to infer and understand other people’s mental states, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and knowledge (Doherty, 2011). We predicted these two concepts are associated, and this prediction was assessed through the research outlined here. The current study examined potential associations between children’s (N=82; 5-8 years old) anthropomorphism, parent-reported theory of mind, and parent-reported social …


Does Behavioral Synchrony Extend To Robots? Children’S Sharing, Mentalizing, And Social Attributions To Synchronous Others, Sarah E. Sweezy Jan 2023

Does Behavioral Synchrony Extend To Robots? Children’S Sharing, Mentalizing, And Social Attributions To Synchronous Others, Sarah E. Sweezy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Behavioral synchrony, or the act of keeping rhythm with others, has many implications on children’s interactions with others, from prosocial behaviors to feelings of affiliation with synchronous people. However, little is known about how behavioral synchrony applies to non-human entities. From robots leading movement-based learning in classrooms or being engaged in cultural settings, a new series of questions arise for how children view synchronizing with non-human others. The current study aimed to investigate how broadly synchronization effects would extend in a child sample: Are behavioral synchrony effects limited to synchronizing with humans or do they extend to social agents (e.g., …


Moral Circles And Mind Perception Shift Perceptions Of Effective Altruism, Kyle Fiore Law Aug 2021

Moral Circles And Mind Perception Shift Perceptions Of Effective Altruism, Kyle Fiore Law

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Across a re-analysis of an existing dataset (Study 1; N = 96) and a higher-powered new study (Study 2; N = 300), we reveal that moral valuation of environmentalism over humanitarianism predicts less favorable moral judgments of effective altruism (i.e., welfare-maximizing socially distant altruism directed at humans) that is performed at the exclusion of helping animals in need. Furthermore, this relationship is explained by tendencies in mind perception to dehumanize outgroup members and stigmatized humans, rather than tendencies to anthropomorphize animals (Study 2). These findings reveal that granular versus aggregate individual differences in moral circles and mind perception may be …


Social Responses To Media Technologies In The 21st Century: The Media Are Social Actors Paradigm, Matthew Lombard, Kun Xu Apr 2021

Social Responses To Media Technologies In The 21st Century: The Media Are Social Actors Paradigm, Matthew Lombard, Kun Xu

Human-Machine Communication

Clifford Nass and his colleagues proposed the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm in the 1990s and demonstrated that we treat computers in some of the ways we treat humans. To account for technological advances and to refine explanations for CASA results, this paper proposes the Media Are Social Actors (MASA) paradigm. We begin by distinguishing the roles of primary and secondary cues in evoking medium-as-social-actor presence and social responses. We then discuss the roles of individual differences and contextual factors in these responses and identify mindless and mindful anthropomorphism as two major complementary mechanisms for understanding MASA phenomena. Based …


Perceiving Sociable Technology: Exploring The Role Of Anthropomorphism And Agency Perception On Human-Computer Interaction (Hci), Jose Pineda Feb 2021

Perceiving Sociable Technology: Exploring The Role Of Anthropomorphism And Agency Perception On Human-Computer Interaction (Hci), Jose Pineda

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the arrival of personal assistants and other AI-enabled autonomous technologies, social interactions with smart devices have become a part of our daily lives. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand how these social interactions emerge, and why users appear to be influenced by them. For this reason, I explore questions on what the antecedents and consequences of this phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, are as described in the extant literature from fields ranging from information systems to social neuroscience. I critically analyze those empirical studies directly measuring anthropomorphism and those referring to it without a corresponding measurement. Through a grounded …


Religion, But Not Parents, Predict Children's Tendency To Anthropomorphize, Sarah R. Carbis Jan 2021

Religion, But Not Parents, Predict Children's Tendency To Anthropomorphize, Sarah R. Carbis

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human characteristics and behaviors to non- human entities, is not a new concept in psychology research, but is becoming increasingly more popular. This is likely to do with the emergence of artificial intelligence and other technologies in our society. Anthropomorphism is something that is encountered on a regular basis, and much research has been done looking at various aspects of this concept. Current research has investigated parental language and its relation to children’s anthropomorphism, anthropomorphism in relation to culture, how it intersects with development, among others. However, there are gaps in the research of anthropomorphism, …


An Interaction Between Anthropomorphism And Personality On Trust In Automated Systems, Abraham Haskins Jan 2021

An Interaction Between Anthropomorphism And Personality On Trust In Automated Systems, Abraham Haskins

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Automated assistance is increasingly being implemented in domains ranging from healthcare to transportation. The reason for the tendency for certain users to trust or mistrust automated assistance has been studied to mixed effect. I examined the effect of anthropomorphism as an independent factor on user trust. In addition, I examined the potential for anthropomorphism to act as a moderator between the personality traits of a user and the trust a user demonstrates in the automated aid. Though the participants in the anthropomorphic condition did view the assistant as more human-like, the level of anthropomorphism had no effect on user behavior. …


Reported Behavioural Differences Between Geldings And Mares Challenge Sex-Driven Stereotypes In Ridden Equine Behaviour, Anna Aune, Kate Fenner, Bethany Wilson, Elissa Cameron, Andrew Mclean, Paul Mcgreevy Mar 2020

Reported Behavioural Differences Between Geldings And Mares Challenge Sex-Driven Stereotypes In Ridden Equine Behaviour, Anna Aune, Kate Fenner, Bethany Wilson, Elissa Cameron, Andrew Mclean, Paul Mcgreevy

Anthropomorphism and Anthropocentrism Collection

Horse trainers and riders may have preconceived ideas of horse temperament based solely on the sex of the horse. A study (n = 1233) of horse enthusiasts (75% of whom had more than 8 years of riding experience) revealed that riders prefer geldings over mares and stallions. While these data may reflect different sex preferences in horses used for sport, they may also reduce the chances of some horses reaching their performance potential. Further, an unfounded sex prejudice is likely to contribute to unconscious bias when perceiving unwanted behaviours, simplistically attributing them to demographic characteristics rather than more complex legacies …


The Use Of Mobile Social Technology As Transitional Objects Impact On Personality Functioning, Peter Gleiberman Jan 2020

The Use Of Mobile Social Technology As Transitional Objects Impact On Personality Functioning, Peter Gleiberman

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact unlimited connectivity and unlimited access to voice, text, and video communication as well as multimedia content consumption through mobile social technology has on personality integration. The increased use of mobile social technology has changed how the user engages social relationships. Through mobile social technology, the user places importance in an inanimate object for engagement of social relationships. A reliance on the inanimate object as a social relationship is thought to compromise the ability to internalize integrated object relations and develop stable personality organization. This theoretical research uses hermeneutic analysis of …


Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach Sep 2019

Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach

Lynne Sneddon, PhD

Key (2016) affirms that we do not know how the fish brain processes pain but denies — because fish lack a human-like cortex — that fish can feel pain. He affirms that birds, like fish, have a singly-laminated cortex and that the structure of the bird brain is quite different from that of the human brain, yet he does not deny that birds can feel pain. In this commentary we describe how Key cites studies that substantiate mammalian pain but discounts the same kind of data as evidence of fish pain. We suggest that Key's interpretations are illogical, do not …


Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt Sep 2019

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The phenomenology of numinous or Being-experience in the later Heidegger is the focus in this third in a series of papers on a group of independent figures— also including Jung, Reich, Toynbee, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who beginning in the crisis years of the 1930s envisioned versions of a futural “New Age” spirituality to address a globalizing materialism and its disenchantments—and so also creating a context for much of contemporary transpersonal and consciousness studies. A preliminary consideration of Heidegger in the contexts of transpersonal psychology, religious studies, the macro-histories of Toynbee and Sorokin, James on “pure experience,” and spirituality …


Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt Jan 2019

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive

The phenomenology of numinous or Being-experience in the later Heidegger is the focus in this third in a series of papers on a group of independent figures— also including Jung, Reich, Toynbee, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who beginning in the crisis years of the 1930s envisioned versions of a futural “New Age” spirituality to address a globalizing materialism and its disenchantments—and so also creating a context for much of contemporary transpersonal and consciousness studies. A preliminary consideration of Heidegger in the contexts of transpersonal psychology, religious studies, the macro-histories of Toynbee and Sorokin, James on “pure experience,” and spirituality …


Denialism And Muddying The Water Or Organized Skepticism And Clarity? That Is The Question, Ben Diggles, Howard I. Browman Jan 2018

Denialism And Muddying The Water Or Organized Skepticism And Clarity? That Is The Question, Ben Diggles, Howard I. Browman

Animal Sentience

The research being commented on here has been criticized and defended in journals. Sneddon et al. (2018) add nothing substantive. We have nothing further to add. Readers are referred to Diggles (2018) and to Browman et al. (2018) for a detailed assessment.


Should Cookie Monster Adopt A Healthy Lifestyle Or Continue To Indulge? Insights Into Brand Icons, Altaf Merchant, Kathryn A. Latour, John B. Ford, Michael S. Latour Jan 2018

Should Cookie Monster Adopt A Healthy Lifestyle Or Continue To Indulge? Insights Into Brand Icons, Altaf Merchant, Kathryn A. Latour, John B. Ford, Michael S. Latour

Marketing Faculty Publications

Developing a brand icon has been a way for marketers to humanize and forge relationships with consumers. Icon development takes time. During this time, marketers have to face how much they stay true and consistent with their icons and how much they allow their icons to adapt to cultural changes in the marketplace. Little is known about how consumers respond to changing icons, and even less is known about whether there may be certain consumer groups that are more or less receptive to such changes. Four experiments and qualitative interviews were undertaken to gain insights into these issues. People who …


Real Loneliness And Artificial Companionship: Looking For Social Connections In Technology, Fernando L. Montalvo Jan 2017

Real Loneliness And Artificial Companionship: Looking For Social Connections In Technology, Fernando L. Montalvo

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Loneliness among older adults is a problem with severe consequences to individual health, quality of life, cognitive capacity, and life-expectancy. Although approaches towards improving the quality and quantity of social relationships are the prevailing model of therapy, older adults may not always be able to form these relationships due to either personality factors, decreased mobility, or isolation. Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs), virtual agents, and social robotics offer an opportunity for the development of technology that could potentially serve as social companions to older adults. The present study explored whether an IPA could potentially be used as a social companion to …


The Potential For Sentience In Fishes, Jay R. Stauffer Jr. Jan 2017

The Potential For Sentience In Fishes, Jay R. Stauffer Jr.

Animal Sentience

Balcombe’s book is filled with information on the biology, behavior, and life history of fishes. I do not agree with all his premises. I am still somewhat perplexed about the discussion of whether fish feel pain; I am not sure whether the distinction between nociception and pain makes any difference. Overall, however, his treatment of the principles of both natural and sexual selection is comprehensive and accurate, and has greatly increased my knowledge and awareness of the biology, ethology, and potential for sentience in fishes. In summary, this work has exposed me to new ideas about how to examine fishes …


God On Trial: Are Our Moral Judgments Different Based On Whether We Are Judging God Or Humans?, Ben Kok Leong Ng Jan 2017

God On Trial: Are Our Moral Judgments Different Based On Whether We Are Judging God Or Humans?, Ben Kok Leong Ng

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Past work in moral psychology has demonstrated that individuals’ judgments of other humans in hypothetical moral scenarios can be influenced by variables such as intentionality, causality and controllability. However, while empirical studies suggest that individuals similarly hold nonhuman agents such as robots morally accountable for their actions to the extent that they are perceived to possess humanlike attributes important for moral judgments, research is scant when God is introduced as a nonhuman agent. On one hand it is proposed that because people anthropomorphize God, our moral intuitions of humans and God tend to show similar effects. In this case, both …


Wild Justice And Fair Play: Cooperation, Forgiveness, And Morality In Animals, Marc Bekoff Sep 2016

Wild Justice And Fair Play: Cooperation, Forgiveness, And Morality In Animals, Marc Bekoff

Marc Bekoff, PhD

In this paper I argue that we can learn much about ‘wild justice’ and the evolutionary origins of social morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living animals, and that interdisciplinary cooperation will help immensely. In our efforts to learn more about the evolution of morality we need to broaden our comparative research to include animals other than non-human primates. If one is a good Darwinian, it is premature to claim that only humans can be empathic and moral beings. By asking the question ‘What is it like to be another animal?’ we can discover rules …


Naturalizing Anthropomorphism: Behavioral Prompts To Our Humanizing Of Animals, Alexandra C. Horowitz, Marc Bekoff Sep 2016

Naturalizing Anthropomorphism: Behavioral Prompts To Our Humanizing Of Animals, Alexandra C. Horowitz, Marc Bekoff

Marc Bekoff, PhD

Anthropomorphism is the use of human characteristics to describe or explain nonhuman animals. In the present paper, we propose a model for a unified study of such anthropomorphizing. We bring together previously disparate accounts of why and how we anthropomorphize and suggest a means to analyze anthropomorphizing behavior itself. We introduce an analysis of bouts of dyadic play between humans and a heavily anthropomorphized animal, the domestic dog. Four distinct patterns of social interaction recur in successful dog–human play: directed responses by one player to the other, indications of intent, mutual behaviors, and contingent activity. These findings serve as a …


Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach Jan 2016

Anthropomorphic Denial Of Fish Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Matthew C. Leach

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) affirms that we do not know how the fish brain processes pain but denies — because fish lack a human-like cortex — that fish can feel pain. He affirms that birds, like fish, have a singly-laminated cortex and that the structure of the bird brain is quite different from that of the human brain, yet he does not deny that birds can feel pain. In this commentary we describe how Key cites studies that substantiate mammalian pain but discounts the same kind of data as evidence of fish pain. We suggest that Key's interpretations are illogical, do not …


Hermes In The Anthropocene: A Dogologue, Karen Malpede Jan 2016

Hermes In The Anthropocene: A Dogologue, Karen Malpede

Animal Sentience

In this dogologue, a writer and the dog who sits near her desk as she works speak. The dog is concerned about the fate of the world in the hands of humans. His urgent questions send the writer into the world of her own memories when she was a child alone with a horse in nature.


Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews Apr 2015

Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews, PhD

Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well …


Anthropomorphism, Anthropectomy, And The Null Hypothesis, Kristin Andrews, Brian Huss Apr 2015

Anthropomorphism, Anthropectomy, And The Null Hypothesis, Kristin Andrews, Brian Huss

Kristin Andrews, PhD

We examine the claim that the methodology of psychology leads to a bias in animal cognition research against attributing ‘‘anthropomorphic’’ properties to animals (Sober in Thinking with animals: new perspectives on anthropomorphism. Columbia University Press, New York, pp 85–99, 2005; de Waal in Philos Top 27:225–280, 1999). This charge is examined in light of a debate on the role of folk psychology between primatologists who emphasize similarities between humans and other apes, and those who emphasize differences. Weargue that while in practice there is sometimes bias, either in the formulation of the null hypothesis or in the preference of Type-II …


Anthropomorphism, Anthropectomy, And The Null Hypothesis, Kristin Andrews, Brian Huss Sep 2014

Anthropomorphism, Anthropectomy, And The Null Hypothesis, Kristin Andrews, Brian Huss

Experimentation Collection

We examine the claim that the methodology of psychology leads to a bias in animal cognition research against attributing ‘‘anthropomorphic’’ properties to animals (Sober in Thinking with animals: new perspectives on anthropomorphism. Columbia University Press, New York, pp 85–99, 2005; de Waal in Philos Top 27:225–280, 1999). This charge is examined in light of a debate on the role of folk psychology between primatologists who emphasize similarities between humans and other apes, and those who emphasize differences. Weargue that while in practice there is sometimes bias, either in the formulation of the null hypothesis or in the preference of Type-II …


Physiological Reactions To Uncanny Stimuli: Substantiation Of Self-Assessment And Individual Perception, Tatiana Ballion Jan 2012

Physiological Reactions To Uncanny Stimuli: Substantiation Of Self-Assessment And Individual Perception, Tatiana Ballion

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is abundant anecdotal evidence substantiating Mori’s initial observation of the "uncanny valley", a point at which human response to non-human entities drops sharply with respect to comfort (Mori, 1970), and the construct itself has a long-standing history in both Robotics and Psychology. Currently, many fields such as design, training, entertainment, and education make use of heuristic approaches to accommodate the anticipated needs of the user/consumer/audience in certain important aspects. This is due to the lack of empirical substantiation or, in some cases, the impossibility of rigorous quantification; one such area is with respect to the user’s experience of uncanniness, …


Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews Jan 2009

Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well …


Gender And Other Social Effects In People’S Perceptions Of Domesticated Animals, Clayton Wagner Bell, A. Hayden Brown Jan 2007

Gender And Other Social Effects In People’S Perceptions Of Domesticated Animals, Clayton Wagner Bell, A. Hayden Brown

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

It is no secret that people possess radically differing opinions and philosophical beliefs regarding domesticated animals. These contradictory perceptions are especially evident when examining people’s thoughts regarding the mental capabilities of animals and issues related to animal welfare. To determine whether or not gender and social environments play a role in these various perceptions, a survey was formulated and randomly distributed to 1000 undergraduate students across the University of Arkansas campus. Upon examination of the survey results, some very intriguing correlations became apparent. Of particular interest were the differences between the perceptions of males and females regarding domesticated animals. Women …


Naturalizing Anthropomorphism: Behavioral Prompts To Our Humanizing Of Animals, Alexandra C. Horowitz, Marc Bekoff Jan 2007

Naturalizing Anthropomorphism: Behavioral Prompts To Our Humanizing Of Animals, Alexandra C. Horowitz, Marc Bekoff

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

Anthropomorphism is the use of human characteristics to describe or explain nonhuman animals. In the present paper, we propose a model for a unified study of such anthropomorphizing. We bring together previously disparate accounts of why and how we anthropomorphize and suggest a means to analyze anthropomorphizing behavior itself. We introduce an analysis of bouts of dyadic play between humans and a heavily anthropomorphized animal, the domestic dog. Four distinct patterns of social interaction recur in successful dog–human play: directed responses by one player to the other, indications of intent, mutual behaviors, and contingent activity. These findings serve as a …


Wild Justice And Fair Play: Cooperation, Forgiveness, And Morality In Animals, Marc Bekoff Sep 2004

Wild Justice And Fair Play: Cooperation, Forgiveness, And Morality In Animals, Marc Bekoff

Ethology Collection

In this paper I argue that we can learn much about ‘wild justice’ and the evolutionary origins of social morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living animals, and that interdisciplinary cooperation will help immensely. In our efforts to learn more about the evolution of morality we need to broaden our comparative research to include animals other than non-human primates. If one is a good Darwinian, it is premature to claim that only humans can be empathic and moral beings. By asking the question ‘What is it like to be another animal?’ we can discover rules …