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People Often Identify With Non-humans to Alleviate Loneliness
January 20, 2008 at 10:38 AM
General Health News
Nicholas Epley, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at the university, says that this tendency is known as ‘anthropomorphism’ among social scientists.
“Biological reproduction is not a very efficient way to alleviate one’s loneliness, but you can make up people when you’re motivated to do so. When people lack a sense of connection with other people, they are more likely to see their pets, gadgets or gods as human-like,” he said.
The researchers designed three experiments to determine whether lonely people are likely to create humanlike connections with gadgets or pets, or to increase their belief in the supernatural.
In one experiment, they found a correlation between lonely people’s feelings and their tendency to describe a gadget in terms of humanlike mental states.
In another experiment, people were made to feel lonely in the laboratory by asking them to write about a time when they felt lonely or isolated. The researcher found that under such circumstances, the subjects were more likely to believe in the supernatural, whether it be God, angels or miracles, than when they were not feeling lonely.
“If we made them feel lonely, they were also more likely to describe a pet, even if it wasn’t their own pet, as having humanlike mental states that were related to social connection, like being more thoughtful, considerate and compassionate,” Epley said.
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