The Psychology of Giving Human Names to Your Stuff

According to a 2013 poll from the insurance company Nationwide, around 25 percent of car owners have named their ride. Granted, the survey isn’t exactly scientific, but while the statistic may not be a perfect reflection of reality, it does align with something you may have already seen in the wild: Plenty of people like to name the appliances in their lives — cars, laptops, bikes. Maybe you know someone who does it. Maybe it’s you!

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“We think there are multiple reasons why this happens,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “Some of them have to do with just how similar some inanimate object or animal seems to a person. This can sometimes be an appearance, how it behaves or acts, or any other cues or similarities that lead us to treat nonhuman agents as humanlike.”

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): New York Magazine