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. 2022 May;26(4):940-950.
doi: 10.1177/13623613211039387. Epub 2021 Sep 18.

Anthropomorphic tendencies in autism: A conceptual replication and extension of White and Remington (2019) and preliminary development of a novel anthropomorphism measure

Rachel A Clutterbuck  1 , Punit Shah  1 , Hok Sze Leung  1 , Mitchell J Callan  1 , Natalia Gjersoe  1 , Lucy A Livingston  2   3
Affiliations

Anthropomorphic tendencies in autism: A conceptual replication and extension of White and Remington (2019) and preliminary development of a novel anthropomorphism measure

Rachel A Clutterbuck et al. Autism. 2022 May.

Abstract

Anthropomorphism is the tendency to attribute human-like qualities (e.g. thoughts and feelings) to non-human entities (e.g. objects and weather systems). Research by White and Remington (2019) suggested that anthropomorphism is more common in autistic compared to neurotypical adults, which is interesting given that autistic individuals sometimes misunderstand the thoughts and feelings of other people. In this article, we re-examined the link between autism and anthropomorphism in a large sample of adults with varying degrees of autistic traits, with several important methodological advances on previous research. Across two studies, we found that individuals with more autistic traits reported greater anthropomorphic tendencies. As part of these analyses, we had to develop a new, refined measure of anthropomorphism, which showed better reliability and validity than the original measure. This measure will be useful in future autism-related research. Overall, advancing White and Remington's study, these findings help us to better understand individual differences in socially relevant processes, including those that may be enhanced in autism (e.g. anthropomorphism).

Keywords: anthropomorphism; autism; personification; social cognition; theory of mind.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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