Department of Psychology, McGill University.
Psychol Sci. 2016 Dec;27(12):1644-1650. doi: 10.1177/0956797616668510. Epub 2016 Oct 25.
It is a fundamental human need to secure and sustain a sense of social belonging. Previous research has shown that individuals who are lonely are more likely than people who are not lonely to attribute humanlike traits (e.g., free will) to nonhuman agents (e.g., an alarm clock that makes people get up by moving away from the sleeper), presumably in an attempt to fulfill unmet needs for belongingness. We directly replicated the association between loneliness and anthropomorphism in a larger sample ( N = 178); furthermore, we showed that reminding people of a close, supportive relationship reduces their tendency to anthropomorphize. This finding provides support for the idea that the need for belonging has causal effects on anthropomorphism. Last, we showed that attachment anxiety-characterized by intense desire for and preoccupation with closeness, fear of abandonment, and hypervigilance to social cues-was a stronger predictor of anthropomorphism than loneliness was. This finding helps clarify the mechanisms underlying anthropomorphism and supports the idea that anthropomorphism is a motivated process reflecting the active search for potential sources of connection.
归属感是人类的基本需求，人们需要确保并维持这种归属感。先前的研究表明，孤独的人比不孤独的人更有可能将类人特征（例如自由意志）归因于非人类的代理（例如闹钟通过远离睡眠者来叫醒人），这可能是为了满足归属感的未满足需求。我们在更大的样本中（N=178）直接复制了孤独感和拟人化之间的关联；此外，我们还表明，提醒人们与亲近的人之间的支持性关系会降低他们将事物拟人化的倾向。这一发现为归属感对拟人化具有因果影响的观点提供了支持。最后，我们发现，依恋焦虑——强烈渴望和关注亲密关系、害怕被抛弃以及对社交线索的高度警惕——比孤独感更能预测拟人化。这一发现有助于阐明拟人化的机制，并支持拟人化是一种主动的过程，反映了对潜在联系来源的积极搜索的观点。
