Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Sep;99(3):410-35. doi: 10.1037/a0020240.
People commonly anthropomorphize nonhuman agents, imbuing everything from computers to pets to gods with humanlike capacities and mental experiences. Although widely observed, the determinants of anthropomorphism are poorly understood and rarely investigated. We propose that people anthropomorphize, in part, to satisfy effectance motivation-the basic and chronic motivation to attain mastery of one's environment. Five studies demonstrated that increasing effectance motivation by manipulating the perceived unpredictability of a nonhuman agent or by increasing the incentives for mastery increases anthropomorphism. Neuroimaging data demonstrated that the neural correlates of this process are similar to those engaged when mentalizing other humans. A final study demonstrated that anthropomorphizing a stimulus makes it appear more predictable and understandable, suggesting that anthropomorphism satisfies effectance motivation. Anthropomorphizing nonhuman agents seems to satisfy the basic motivation to make sense of an otherwise uncertain environment.
人们通常会将非人类的实体拟人化，赋予从计算机到宠物再到神等一切事物以类似人类的能力和心理体验。尽管这种现象很常见，但人们对拟人化的决定因素了解甚少，也很少对此进行研究。我们提出，人们会进行拟人化，部分原因是为了满足效果动机——即获得对环境掌控的基本且长期的动机。五项研究表明，通过操纵非人类实体的可预测性或增加掌握的动机，来增强效果动机，会增加拟人化。神经影像学数据表明，这一过程的神经关联与对其他人类进行心理化时所涉及的神经关联相似。最后一项研究表明，将一个刺激物拟人化会使其看起来更可预测和可理解，这表明拟人化可以满足效果动机。将非人类实体拟人化似乎可以满足理解一个原本不确定的环境的基本动机。
