Childhood Anthropomorphism and Attachment Objects

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

It is not uncommon to encounter a child breaking down in a tear-ridden tantrum because they cannot find their favorite toy or blankie. Such toys are attachment objects: they provide comfort, help children fall asleep, and are difficult to separate from. Prior research has shown that children are likely to anthropomorphize – attribute human beliefs, behaviors, and/or characteristics to – their attachment objects more than their non-attachment objects, primarily as a function of their emotional attachment and the object’s personifying features, like having a face and name (Gjersoe, Hall, & Hood, 2015). While helpful in understanding children’s anthropomorphizing behaviors, these findings are limited by the nature of the forced-choice task used in these studies (choosing between mental or physical characteristics for their toys), as was noted by the authors.

This study examined anthropomorphism in children who do and do not have attachment objects with a series of direct and indirect tasks regarding both animate (has a face) and inanimate (no face) toys. Children were attached to their animate toy, inanimate toy, both toys, or neither toy.

Children ages 3-5 (n=141; Mage = 4.26 years, SD = 0.71; 68 female) participated. We included a battery of 12 tasks that assessed attributes of each toy (e.g., can it eat, see, feel happy, have friends), whether it was treated as a moral agent or moral patient (e.g., OK to throw it in a box?), whether it could be ascribed blame (e.g., blamed for knocking over a cup that breaks?), examined how often children engaged in pretend play (e.g., putting it in a toy cradle), used animate pronouns (he/she), interpreted it as a conversational partner, etc. Questions were blocked by toy-type, in counterbalanced order. Attachment status was assessed by parent questionnaire: 37 animate-only, 17 inanimate-only, 27 both, and 59 neither.

We predicted that children would exhibit more anthropomorphic beliefs about 1) the toys that they were attached to than the toys they were not attached to, and 2) animate toys than inanimate toys.

Across the majority of our measures, children provided more anthropomorphic responses for their animate than their inanimate toys, ps < .05. Children’s attachment status did not appear to influence their willingness to anthropomorphize their objects. Detailed results can be seen in Table 1.

The clear pattern of our results – that children anthropomorphize animate toys at significantly higher rates than inanimate ones, regardless of attachment status – suggests that an object’s features, such as having a face, are the primary determinant of anthropomorphic tendencies. There are a few possible explanations underlying the inconsistent results between the current study and Gjersoe et al.’s. Age may have played a part: the current study worked with 3.5-5.5yos, whereas Gjersoe et al. worked with 2-3yos. The different measures of anthropomorphism may also explain the different findings. More broadly, this study suggests that childhood anthropomorphism is fairly common, at least when children are interacting with their animate toys. Future studies could examine the relative likelihood of anthropomorphic tendencies to emerge with novel and well-loved animate toys.

Authors

• Valerie Umscheid, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Presenting Author

• Natalie S Davidson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan A Gelman, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author