Anthropomorphism

[2] Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions, and natural forces, such as seasons and weather.

[b][1] From the beginnings of human behavioral modernity in the Upper Paleolithic, about 40,000 years ago, examples of zoomorphic (animal-shaped) works of art occur that may represent the earliest known evidence of anthropomorphism.

This anthropomorphic art has been linked by archaeologist Steven Mithen with the emergence of more systematic hunting practices in the Upper Palaeolithic.

[7] He proposes that these are the product of a change in the architecture of the human mind, an increasing fluidity between the natural history and social intelligences[clarification needed], where anthropomorphism allowed hunters to identify empathetically with hunted animals and better predict their movements.

The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12, Verse 5, states that it is much more difficult for people to focus on a deity that is unmanifested than one with form, remarking on the usage of anthropomorphic icons (murtis) that adherents can perceive with their senses.

[20] In Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie proposes that all religions are anthropomorphisms that originate in the brain's tendency to detect the presence or vestiges of other humans in natural phenomena.

Collections of linked fables from India, the Jataka Tales and Panchatantra, also employ anthropomorphized animals to illustrate principles of life.

Aesop's anthropomorphisms were so familiar by the first century CE that they colored the thinking of at least one philosopher: And there is another charm about him, namely, that he puts animals in a pleasing light and makes them interesting to mankind.

"[24] Anthropomorphic motifs have been common in fairy tales from the earliest ancient examples set in a mythological context to the great collections of the Brothers Grimm and Perrault.

This continued in the twentieth century with many of the most popular titles having anthropomorphic characters,[25] examples being The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901) and later books by Beatrix Potter;[f] The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908); Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928) by A.

The best-selling examples of the genre are The Hobbit[29] (1937) and The Lord of the Rings[g] (1954–1955), both by J. R. R. Tolkien, books peopled with talking creatures such as ravens, spiders, and the dragon Smaug and a multitude of anthropomorphic goblins and elves.

John D. Rateliff calls this the "Doctor Dolittle Theme" in his book The History of the Hobbit[31] and Tolkien saw this anthropomorphism as closely linked to the emergence of human language and myth: "...The first men to talk of 'trees and stars' saw things very differently.

[h] Perhaps a majority of picture books have some kind of anthropomorphism,[25][36] with popular examples being The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) by Eric Carle and The Gruffalo (1999) by Julia Donaldson.

Discussing anthropomorphic animals from DreamWorks franchise Madagascar, Timothy Laurie suggests that "social differences based on conflict and contradiction are naturalized and made less 'contestable' through the classificatory matrix of human and nonhuman relations[clarification needed]".

The Netflix original series Centaurworld focuses on a warhorse who gets transported to a Dr. Seuss-like world full of centaurs who possess the bottom half of any animal, as opposed to the traditional horse.

Brian shows many human characteristics – he walks upright, talks, smokes, and drinks Martinis – but also acts like a normal dog in other ways; for example, he cannot resist chasing a ball and barks at the mailman, believing him to be a threat.

In a similar case, BoJack Horseman, an American Netflix adult animated black comedy series, takes place in an alternate world where humans and anthropomorphic animals live side by side, and centers around the life of BoJack Horseman; a humanoid horse who was a one hit wonder on a popular 1990s sitcom Horsin' Around, living off the show's residuals in present time.

She comes down out of the sky to serve as a tutor of international culture to the three main characters: a boy frog and wombat and a girl butterfly, who are supposed to be preschool children traveling a world populated by anthropomorphic animals with a circus run by their parents.

This series' characters are almost all anthropomorphic animals such as foxes, cats, and other hedgehogs who are able to speak and walk on their hind legs like normal humans.

For Fer, the anthropomorphic qualities of imitation found in the erotic, organic sculptures of artists Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois, are not necessarily for strictly "mimetic" purposes.

"[47] For branding, merchandising, and representation, figures known as mascots are now often employed to personify sports teams, corporations, and major events such as the World's Fair and the Olympics.

These personifications may be simple human or animal figures, such as Ronald McDonald or the donkey that represents the United States's Democratic Party.

A 2012 study by Butterfield et al. found that utilizing anthropomorphic language when describing dogs created a greater willingness to help them in situations of distress.

Biologists have been warned to avoid assumptions that animals share any of the same mental, social, and emotional capacities of humans, and to rely instead on strictly observable evidence.

[57] In 1927 Ivan Pavlov wrote that animals should be considered "without any need to resort to fantastic speculations as to the existence of any possible subjective states".

[61] Even insects play together, as has been described by that excellent observer, P. Huber, who saw ants chasing and pretending to bite each other, like so many puppies.The study of great apes in their own environment and in captivity[j] has changed attitudes to anthropomorphism.

[64] The charge was brought about by their descriptions of the great apes in the field; it is now more widely accepted that empathy has an important part to play in research.

[68] An example that might initially be considered anthropomorphism, but is in fact a logical statement about an artificial intelligence's behavior, would be the Dario Floreano experiments where certain robots spontaneously evolved a crude capacity for "deception", and tricked other robots into eating "poison" and dying: here, a trait, "deception", ordinarily associated with people rather than with machines, spontaneously evolves in a type of convergent evolution.

[78] Since making inferences requires cognitive effort, anthropomorphism is likely to be triggered only when certain aspects about a person and their environment are true.

This penchant for anthropomorphism is likely because children have acquired vast amounts of socialization, but not as much experience with specific non-human entities, so thus they have less developed alternative schemas for their environment.