Heider and Simmel
People explain the behavior of others by assuming motivations, intentions, motives, personality and emotions. This was illustrated in 1944 by an experiment by Heider and Simmel. Participants are shown the animation below and the divided into 3 groups. The first group was just asked to write down what happened. The second group had to provide answers to the list of questions below. The third group had seen the animation in reverse and only had to answer question 1-3 and 10.
In the first group everyone except for one participant described what happened using interpretations of animated beings, and in most cases (19 out of 34) in some form of connected story, one of which is a dramatic story of a dramatic love story of two men fighting over a girl. Likewise in group 2 everyone used 'intentional' language, and in group 3 everyone bar 2 participants. The results of the second group were primarily used to point out the large amount in consistency of ascribed motivations and emotions.
In other words, this experiment demonstrates that humans easily attribute motivations, personality and emotions to objects, even if these are highly abstract and unlike reality.
(1) What kind of a person is the big triangle? (2) What kind of a person is the little triangle? (3) What kind of a person is the circle (disc) ? (4) Why did the two triangles fight? (5) Why did the circle go into the house? (6) In one part of the movie the big triangle and the circle were in the house together. What did the big triangle do then? Why? (7) What did the circle do when it was in the house with the big triangle? Why? (8) In one part of the movie the big triangle was shut up in the house and tried to get out. What did the little triangle and the circle do then? (9) Why did the big triangle break the house? (10) Tell the story of the movie in a few sentences
Heider, F, & Simmel, M. (1944). “An experimental study of apparent behavior“. American Journal of Psychology, 57, 243–259