The Influence of Anthropomorphism on Giving Personal Names to Objects

Abstract

Some people give a proper name to an owned individual object, such as a car or a computer. The study examined whether giving a proper name to a specific object is associated with object personification, and more specifically, whether object personification is a prerequisite to name giving. The latter question was assessed by asking 130 participants whether, in their adult life, they had ever given a personal name to an object, and if so, whether they had attributed psychological characteristics to that named object. The general relationship between personal name giving and personification was assessed by evaluating whether the scores from a questionnaire on anthropomorphism differed in participants who reported having given a specific name to at least one personal object, compared with those who reported not doing so (Mann-Whitney’s U test). Results showed that the scores from the questionnaire on anthropomorphism were significantly higher for participants who had given specific names to objects than for participants who had not done so. However, object personification was not found to be a prerequisite to name giving. Indeed, about 40 percent of people who reported giving personal names to objects did not attribute psychological qualities to these objects.