Anthropomorphism of the Object

What it measures

A seven-item scale measuring the degree to which a non-human object — such as a digital avatar, chatbot, robot, or brand — is perceived to possess human-like characteristics, qualities, and intentions. Items tap into whether the object appears to be alive, to have humanlike qualities, to seem person-like, to feel human, to have a personality, to possess its own mind, and to act with its own intentions. Developed for chatbot research, the scale is broadly applicable to any context in which the humanisation of a non-human agent is theoretically relevant.

Response format

7-point Likert

Scale items

• ...came alive (like a person) in your mind.
• ...has some humanlike qualities.
• ...seems like a person.
• ...felt human.
• ...seemed to have a personality.
• ...seemed to have a mind of his/her own.
• ...seemed to have his/her own intentions.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

SCALE STEM: Items complete a stem such as 'Please rate the extent to which the [object]...' — the object name replaces the blank in the stem. Two reliability estimates from pretests: α = .98 (Study 2 pretest, n = 101) and α = .97 (Study 3 pretest, n = 121) — Crolic et al. (2022). Used as manipulation checks in both pretests; successful confirmation of the anthropomorphism manipulation provides preliminary predictive validity. VALIDITY: Not formally addressed. Developed drawing on Epley et al. (2008) and Kim & McGill (2011); items appear largely original.

Citation

Crolic, Cammy, Felipe Thomaz, Rhonda Hadi, and Andrew T. Stephen (2022). Blame the bot: Anthropomorphism and anger in customer-chatbot interactions. Journal of Marketing, 86(1), 132–148.

Keywords