People like to give inanimate objects names. I named my guitar Zac when I was 14, for example. Others even talk to their beloved things and treat them like a human, and there’s hardly anything wrong with that, right? Well, to some, it might seem just like a harmless quirk. But others think these people are weird and their behavior is embarrassing.
Like this boyfriend, who called out his girlfriend for treating her car, Angie, like a person, saying that she’s being “weird” and “embarrassing.” Perhaps he has been reading too much Stephen King recently? Either way, when she went radio silent, he started wondering if he maybe acted like a jerk.
Bored Panda got in touch with an expert who studies the human mind, Adam Waytz, Ph.D. He is a professor and psychologist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and he kindly agreed to tell us more about why people like to attribute human qualities to objects, and how that can affect relationships.
