A Present for Pinocchio: On When Non-Biological Agents Become Real

Abstract

People often ascribe human attributes to objects, a phenomenon named anthropomorphism. As research has mainly focused on explicitly measured attitudes toward objects, we investigated in four studies whether perceiving a non-biological agent behaving in a human-like manner influences meaningful social behavior. Participants watched a video fragment containing either a biological agent or a non-biological agent (i.e., Pinocchio) as the main character, in order to increase the perceived agency of the respective agent. Subsequently, participants' behavior toward the biological and non-biological agent was assessed measuring interpersonal closeness and prosocial behavior. Participants who watched a video of a non-biological agent sought more interpersonal closeness toward this agent compared to participants who watched a video of a biological agent, meaning that they sat closer to Pinocchio. Thus, when we anthropomorphize non-biological agents, this has profound effects on how we interact with these agents: it...