Download human beings have a deep- seated tendency to humanize

FeATureS
human beings have a deepseated tendency to humanize
everything around them. is
it delusion—or a natural and
healthy response to loneliness?
by meera lee Sethi
seventy-five percent of pet owners
consider their animal part of the family.
Eighty percent of computer users curse
out loud at uncooperative machines.
Seventy percent of people who own a
Roomba—the much-hyped room-clean­
ing robot—end up giving it a name.
Most of us are apt to attach human
characteristics to nonhuman objects and
animals, a tendency known as anthropo­
morphism. Yet despite the prevalence of
anthropomorphism in our lives, it carries
a powerful stigma. It’s seen as irrational,
if not insane—consider, for example, the
stereotype of the crazy old lady who
talks to no one but her cats. When we
anthropomorphize, the thinking goes,
we’re living in a world built on lies and
misperceptions.
New research might make us think
again. This science suggests that anthro­
pomorphism reflects a deep drive to form
social connections, even with objects
made of metal and wire. Far from being
irrational, anthropomorphism may be a
perfectly rational response to the social
isolation that seems to be reaching epi­
demic proportions in the United States:
A 2006 survey by sociologists at Duke
University and the University of Arizona
revealed that since 1984, twice as many
people say they have no one with whom
to discuss important personal matters; in
the same time span, the average person
has one-third fewer close friends.
34 Greater Good Summer 2008
Brad Aldridge
Seeing
human
In short, it’s a good
time to wonder how our
brains cope with loneliness.
desperate to connect
Ensconced in his sunny office at the
University of Chicago Business School,
psychologist Nicholas Epley seems like
a friendly guy, especially for someone
who studies anthropomorphism and its
relationship to loneliness.
In a 2006 experiment on anthropomor­
phism, participants answered questions
about how often they felt isolated from
others. They were then presented with a
series of objects, such as an egg-shaped
alarm clock that Epley now keeps on a
shelf in his office.
To what extent, researchers asked
participants, does each gadget have
intentions, free will, or emotions? The
loneliest people, they found, were the
ones most likely to assign human qualities
to inanimate objects. “It turns out,” says
Epley, gesturing toward the clock on his
shelf, “that you’re more likely to think that
a gadget like that little guy up there has
some kind of will and a mind of its own if
you’re a chronically lonely person.”
That finding led Epley to challenge
the notion that anthropomorphism is a
mistake or symptom of insanity. His goal
became to figure out why we can’t seem
to prevent ourselves from doing what
he calls “seeing human.” What, Epley
asks, are “the cases in which these kinds
of phenomena are likely to be the most
powerful, and when are they likely to be
the weakest?”
He followed up on that 2006 study with
an experiment that induced loneliness
in his lab—an attempt to draw a more
direct causal link between loneliness and
anthropomorphism. He asked one group
of participants to empathize with a lonely
protagonist in a video clip, instructing
these participants to put themselves
deeply into the shoes of the character
they watched. Another group watched a
video with a fearful protagonist. A third
group watched a clip of a crowd of people
interacting.
Then all the groups were asked to rate
their pets, or other animals they knew,
on scales measuring thoughtfulness,
considerateness, and compassion—traits
that a lonely person might appreciate in a
supportive friend. Again, Epley found that
people who experienced loneliness were
much more likely to anthropomorphize,
in this case by attributing human traits to
animals. This, says Epley, further suggests
that humans tend to create “agents that
can especially alleviate the pain of social
disconnection.”
The human brain, it seems, is hardwired to satisfy its drive for social connec­
Curing the lonely brain
As someone familiar with the detrimental
effects of social disconnection, Hawkley
finds Epley’s research “fascinating”—and
potentially therapeutic. “Given the impor­
tance of a feeling of social connectedness
for health,” says Hawkley, “how that need is
satisfied may be less important than the fact
that it is satisfied.”
If anthropomorphism does prove to have
genuine health benefits, they would arise
out of a kind of placebo effect: The body is
responding to the idea of social attachment,
not to an actual connection with a real
person. “This is the wonder of the human
organism,” says Hawkley. “How we think
and feel is intimately bound up with how
our body behaves, thanks to reciprocal
communication streams between the brain
and the body.”
In other words, the connection between
mind and body is extraordinarily powerful.
Emotions can have measurable physical
effects, for better or for worse—and those
emotions can be generated any number of
ways, including through interactions with
both people and objects.
Hawkley believes one positive way to
apply Epley’s findings would be to give a
lonely person the responsibility of caring for
a pet. Therapies like this, which exploit our
propensity for creating anthropomorphic
support systems, might offer “physiological
protection” to people who don’t get enough
social contact.
Spending time with the robotic seal Paro not only
lifts people’s moods but may actually make them
more resistant to stress.
Many studies have investigated the perks
of animal companionship. One 2001 study
found that people taking drugs for high
blood pressure who adopted a pet experi­
enced greater benefits from drug therapy.
The pet-owners also showed significant
resistance to blood pressure spikes when
exposed to sudden stressful events.
There is less hard evidence for the benefits
of anthropomorphic machines. Still, Epley’s
results suggest that people can respond
emotionally to technology on some level.
Senior citizens throughout Japan would
seem to agree. Since 2005, many of these
seniors have received visits from a furry
animatronic seal named Paro, who offers
short periods of friendly companionship
to patients at day centers and nursing
homes across Japan. Research conducted
by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
found that interacting with Paro improved
mental sharpness in patients with disorders
like Alzheimer’s and dementia. And after
their sessions with the lifelike Paro, half of
the impaired subjects showed more normal
brainwave measurements than before. The
effects were greater in those who reported
that they enjoyed spending time with the
robot.
Paro’s inventor, Takanori Shibata, a senior
research scientist at AIST, has also tested
the urine of elderly subjects who interacted
with Paro, looking for stress-related hor­
mones. His findings suggest that spending
time with Paro not only lifts people’s moods
but may actually make them more resistant
to stress.
Finding humanity
Still, not everyone is optimistic about using
technology to satisfy the human need for
social connection.
Roboticist Brian R. Duffy, who has spent
years developing social robots at places like
MIT’s Media Lab in Europe, cautions that
objects are poor substitutes for interactions
with other people. To Duffy, the emotional
bonds that can develop between seniors and
machines like Paro are dangerous because
they substitute real human compassion with
something manufactured.
Technology, says Duffy, “should only
assist us in being human, not replace the
humanity that is within us.” His counsel for
us as a society? “Take more responsibility
for those around us, including our aging
parents and grandparents, rather than
offload our roles onto machines.” Duffy’s
advice is sensible, but it doesn’t seem to offer
much solace to lonely individuals.
Stewart Guthrie, professor emeritus
of anthropology at Fordham University,
has written extensively on the psychology
and philosophy of anthropomorphism. He
argues that while the reasons for anthropo­
morphism are diverse, it is primarily a side
effect of our need to look for meaning in the
world. “What we look for first,” says Guthrie,
“is whatever matters most. If we’re lonely, it’s
potential social partners.” Guthrie believes
that in showing how loneliness motivates
anthropomorphism, Epley has confirmed
an essential truth about what humans desire
most—and what we’re missing in our world
today.
In the end, says Epley, we can’t judge
anthropomorphism as good or bad, for it
seems to be an instinctive human reaction.
“You can’t change how your brain works,” he
says. “It’s a three-pound meatloaf we’ve got­
ten over several million years of evolution.
We’re not going to change it by wishing it
worked a little differently.”
meera lee Sethi is a Chicago-based writer.
Summer 2008 Greater Good 35
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
tion in any way it can, and for good reason:
A growing body of scientific evidence links
loneliness to a long list of health problems,
from Alzheimer’s to heart disease to diabe­
tes.
For instance, research by neuroscientist
Louise Hawkley, also at the University of
Chicago, has found a connection between
loneliness and high blood pressure among
middle-aged adults, which increases their
risk of death from a stroke or heart attack.
But Hawkley has also found that the effects
of loneliness may begin earlier in life. She
says loneliness in young adults seems to
affect the ways their bodies regulate blood
pressure, placing greater “wear and tear” on
blood vessels and setting the stage for high
blood pressure later on.
These results, says Hawkley, support a
troubling theory: “loneliness accelerates
aging.” From this perspective, anthropo­
morphism is a critical—if, perhaps, last
ditch—survival technique that kicks in
to stave off the negative health effects of
loneliness.