Abstract:  Anthropomorphism refers to the psychological process or individual difference of imbuing nonhuman agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions, or mental states. Elicited agent knowledge, effectance motivation, and sociality motivation have been found as the three key determinants of anthropomorphism. Existing research mainly focused on anthropomorphism of nature, super-nature, animals, machines, brands, and products. Previous research found that, anthropomorphizing nature contributed to pro-environment behavior, while anthropomorphism of animals, machines, brands or products had diversified forms and ambiguous consequences. Future research might be mainly conducted in human-robot interaction area, as well as the relationship between anthropomorphism and cuteness.

Key words: anthropomorphism, humanization, brand, human-robot interaction, mind perception