The association between emotion anthropomorphism and individuals’ emotion regulation and mental health

Anthropomorphism refers to the tendency to attribute humanlike mental capacities to nonhuman entities. Prior research has primarily focused on state-like anthropomorphism by manipulating the degree of anthropomorphic features in concrete object targets (e.g., toy, pet, money etc.). However, individuals can also have different levels of tendency to anthropomorphize, and they can anthropomorphize more abstract targets such as emotions. The present study aimed to provide a more refined understanding of anthropomorphism by introducing emotion anthropomorphism as a novel, trait-like dimension of individual differences. Korean adults aged 19 to 39 ( N = 500; 50% men and 50% women) completed measures of anthropomorphism toward animals, non-animal agents, and emotions. We also measured psychological functions, including emotion dysregulation, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and alexithymia. Factor analyses and structural equation modeling were conducted to examine the factor structure of anthropomorphism and its associations with psychological outcomes. The results supported a three-factor structure, as well as a higher-order factor representing general anthropomorphism. Animal anthropomorphism was negatively associated with multiple indices of emotion dysregulation and psychological difficulties (e.g., loneliness, depression, alexithymia), whereas non-animal anthropomorphism demonstrated positive associations with most of those indices. Emotion anthropomorphism was positively associated with cognitive emotion regulation strategies. These findings indicate that emotions may be anthropomorphized at the trait level, and support emotion anthropomorphism as a facet of anthropomorphism towards abstract targets. Moreover, the results suggest that the subfactors of anthropomorphism may carry distinct psychological meanings, with emotion anthropomorphism showing a more selective association with cognitive emotion regulation strategies.