Do you talk to your pets? Well, you’re not crazy. You’re actually brilliant according to professor of behavioral science Nicholas Epley.
If you’re like me, you have full conversations with your pet.
You ask them if they’re hungry or if they had fun playing outside. You might even sing to them or get into funny made up arguments with them.
Epley says this, and giving human attributes to other non-human entities, makes us “uniquely smart.”
“Historically, anthropomorphizing has been treated as a sign of childishness or stupidity, but it’s actually a natural byproduct of the tendency that makes humans uniquely smart on this planet,” the University of Chicago professor was quoted as saying.
Anthropomorphizing, or perceiving non-human things as human, is something we see kids do all the time and think nothing of it.
But once you’re an adult, people just think you’re weird or insane.
“Historically, anthropomorphizing has been treated as a sign of childishness or stupidity. But it’s actually a natural byproduct of the tendency that makes humans uniquely smart on this planet,” Epley told Quartz. “No other species has this tendency.”
But anthropologist experts say it’s actually a sign of intelligence.
A 2o11 Harvard study found that humans are the only living beings who can identify human behavior in inanimate objects, according to The Daily Net.
Not only does anthropomorphism make you smarter, but it also makes our pets smarter. Studies show that if you talk to your dog they learn to differentiate between words and your gestures.
Dogs can understand the words we speak to them and the emotions we associate with those words. Cats do too, just not as much as dogs.
They recognize our voice and commands.
They just don’t specifically understand our words. They actually use more than 16 different ways o communicate.
Humans humanize non-human things for three main reasons:
- if it looks human
- if we want to be friends with i
- or if we’re curious about and can’t predict is behavior
This tendency is actually crucial to human survival.talk
“We often name objects like cars, instruments, boats, and cameras — all items that we develop special relationships with and consider extensions of our own identities. But it goes beyond naming: We think our cat is acting ‘sassy;; that the stock market is ‘angry’ or ‘working to recover;’ and we ask our car ‘why it won’t turn on’ and call it a ‘rickety old man’ when it starts to stall. This is just the byproduct of having an active, intelligent social cognition — of having a brain that is programmed to see and perceive minds,” Epley said.
So keep on anthropomorphizing with your weird highly intelligent selves! When people ask questions, tell them you’re a uniquely smart human on this planet.
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