Gao Rui-Rui, Si Shang-Wen, Lin Xiao-Xiao, Wang Yu-Zheng, Wang Ning, Wang Jin-Yan, Luo Fei
Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2024 Jun 5;15:1281207. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1281207. eCollection 2024.
Anthropomorphism, the attribution of human-like qualities (e.g., mental states) to nonhuman entities, is a universal but variable psychological experience. Adults with professionally diagnosed autism or high levels of subclinical autistic traits consistently show greater tendencies to anthropomorphize, which has been hypothesized to reflect 1) a compensatory mechanism for lack of social connectedness and 2) a persistence of childhood anthropomorphism into adulthood. Here, we directly tested these hypotheses in a general population sample consisting of both adults (N=685, 17-58 years old) and early adolescents (N=145, 12-14 years old) using the refined 9-item Anthropomorphism Questionnaire (AnthQ9), which measures both present and childhood anthropomorphic tendencies. We found that adults with heightened autistic traits reported increased present anthropomorphism (e.g., tend more to perceive computers as having minds), which held even after controlling for social connectedness. In contrast, adolescents with heightened autistic traits did not show increased present anthropomorphism, but rather reported reduced childhood anthropomorphism (e.g., less likely to perceive toys as having feelings) after controlling for social connectedness. We also found evidence that the present and childhood subscales of the AnthQ9 may tap into fundamentally different aspects of anthropomorphism. The results suggest that increased anthropomorphic tendencies in adults with heightened autistic traits cannot be explained solely by increased sociality motivation, but may be due to delayed development of anthropomorphism, although alternative possibilities of measurement problems cannot be ruled out. Implications for the measurement of anthropomorphism and its relation with theory of mind were also discussed.
拟人化，即将类人特质（如心理状态）赋予非人类实体，是一种普遍但存在差异的心理体验。患有专业诊断自闭症或具有高水平亚临床自闭症特质的成年人始终表现出更强的拟人化倾向，这被假设反映了：1）缺乏社会联系的一种补偿机制；2）童年拟人化持续到成年期。在此，我们使用经过改进的9项拟人化问卷（AnthQ9），在一个由成年人（N = 685，17 - 58岁）和青少年早期（N = 145，12 - 14岁）组成的普通人群样本中直接检验了这些假设，该问卷同时测量当前和童年的拟人化倾向。我们发现，具有较高自闭症特质的成年人报告当前拟人化增加（例如，更倾向于认为计算机有思维），即使在控制了社会联系之后也是如此。相比之下，具有较高自闭症特质的青少年并未表现出当前拟人化增加，而是在控制了社会联系之后报告童年拟人化减少（例如，不太可能认为玩具具有情感）。我们还发现有证据表明，AnthQ9的当前和童年子量表可能涉及拟人化的根本不同方面。结果表明，具有较高自闭症特质的成年人中拟人化倾向增加不能仅由社交动机增加来解释，而可能是由于拟人化发展延迟，尽管不能排除测量问题的其他可能性。还讨论了拟人化测量及其与心理理论关系的相关影响。
