As humans, we love projecting our emotions on non-human things like animals, objects and weather events. I’m told the psychological term for this is anthropomorphism, which is difficult to say three ...

People like attributing human characteristics to non-human beings and things. We’ve been doing it since we first started depicting gods in our own image. In a new study, published in the journal ...

I recently gave a talk to an audience of scientists and university professors during which I referred to the "personality" of dogs and the fact that dogs can experience emotions such as love and ...

This post is in response to When Animals Wear Pants: Anthropomorphism and Learning By Boby Ho-Hong Ching Ph.D. I have learned that anthropomorphism is a deeply suspect word, used to defend cruelty to ...

Autumn begins tomorrow. Suffused already with a seasonal nostalgia, I'm replaying scenes of summer in my head. Among them is sitting in a dark theatre, watching apes clamber across San Francisco's ...

Take a class in animal behavior and you’ll probably receive a warning: Beware of anthropomorphism. Explaining animals in terms of human motivations, emotions, or mental characteristics invites ...

After remaining closed for nearly two years, Houghton Library premiered its exhibition “Animals Are Us” — which explores the use of animal anthropomorphism in literature — to the public this semester.

Cute internet videos and animals in children’s entertainment with human-like intentions can be useful, harmful or both – depending on whom you ask Humans have long attempted to portray the natural ...

It’s a hard life for the adorable boy and girl cubs who co-star with their mom in Disney’s “Bears.” One falls asleep on a sandbar only to wake up surrounded by water at high tide and is later nearly ...

I enjoyed Jamie Lafferty’s account of his five-day sledding trip with dogs in Finland (“The power of the dog”, Life & Arts, FT Weekend, January 22), but he really shouldn’t worry about ...