Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2021 Jul;74(7):1295-1304. doi: 10.1177/17470218211005694. Epub 2021 Mar 27.
Anthropomorphism-the attribution of human qualities to non-human objects-is believed to be a natural tendency which may serve several adaptive functions. One possibility is that anthropomorphism provides an egocentric heuristic by which we can understand the world. It may also be a strategy for reducing our subjective sense of loneliness. However, not all humans exhibit the same propensity to anthropomorphise. Recent findings suggest that autistic individuals may be more likely to anthropomorphise than non-autistic individuals. In Study 1, we conducted a large-scale survey of autistic traits and dispositional anthropomorphism in the general population ( = 870). We found that individuals who reported having more autistic traits had an increased dispositional tendency to anthropomorphise non-human entities. In Study 2, we more closely examined variation in anthropomorphism tendencies in a sample of autistic adults ( = 90) to better understand what might drive increased anthropomorphism in this population. We found that those with greater anthropomorphism tendencies experienced greater levels of self-reported loneliness. We propose that increased anthropomorphism might reflect reduced opportunities for social connection for autistic people and those with more autistic traits.
拟人化——将人类的特质归因于非人类的物体——被认为是一种自然倾向，可能具有多种适应性功能。一种可能性是，拟人化提供了一种自我中心的启发式方法，使我们能够理解世界。它也可能是减少我们主观孤独感的一种策略。然而，并非所有人类都表现出相同的拟人化倾向。最近的发现表明，自闭症患者可能比非自闭症患者更倾向于拟人化。在研究 1 中，我们在普通人群中（ = 870）对自闭症特征和倾向拟人化进行了大规模调查。我们发现，报告具有更多自闭症特征的人更倾向于将非人类实体拟人化。在研究 2 中，我们更仔细地研究了自闭症成年人样本中拟人化倾向的变化（ = 90），以更好地理解是什么导致了该人群中拟人化的增加。我们发现，那些具有更大拟人化倾向的人报告的孤独感水平更高。我们提出，拟人化的增加可能反映了自闭症患者和具有更多自闭症特征的人社交机会减少。
