Anthropomorphism: The Danger of Viewing Rabbits through Human Eyes

Anthropomorphism

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What is anthropomorphism?

Anthropomorphism is very common in literature and entertainment, where a non-human character displays human characteristics or when we attribute human traits, emotions, behaviours or actions on animals, objects or even gods.

It is widely used as a literary device to help describe objects in a decorative way, or engage people because they can understand how the character is feeling.

Many movies, cartoons, children’s books and comic strips have anthropomorphic qualities, for example:

• Disney characters: Micky Mouse, Pooh Bear, Robin Hood, Simba, Baloo
• Book characters: Puss in Boots, Peter Rabbit, White Rabbit (Alice in Wonderland), Snoopy
• Anime characters: Legoshi, Natsu Dragneel, Asterius, Nyanta
• Comic/cartoon characters: Garfield, Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, Pink Panther

Anthropomorphism comes from the Greek words anthro (human) morph (form).

A variation of anthropomorphism is personification which is when we attribute human characteristics to nations, emotions, natural forces (seasons and weather). Personification is where we apply metaphorical traits to objects.

Examples:

Anthropomorphism: The birds looked angry. The raven screamed with horror. The snake slithered away looking back over its shoulder.

Personification: The ice wall didn’t care about how cold the wind was. The sick engine coughed it’s last time. The rocks rolled in the container like they were dancing the waltz.

Anthropomorphism and Psychology

It is known to be an innate part of human psychology. In other words, we can’t help to do it, and we do it all the time.

We “see” human-like attributes in something that is non-human, and often we anthropomorphise animal behaviour and “see” their behaviour and emotions as human so we feel comfortable understanding how they are feeling or what they are thinking.

This can easily mislead us, especially when the animals are not really doing or feeling what we project on them, yet we believe it to be the case. However, sometimes by anthropomorphising animals can give us insight into animal behaviour. An example of this is, our pet dog is happy to see us when we get home, but the rocks in our garden aren’t. This dog behaviour is an emotional state, and we as humans perceive it to be happiness.

Why do we anthropomorphise?

We are a social species, and our brain evolved to process social information. It is believed that anthropomorphism can be traced back 30,000 years, where sculptures and paintings show human-animal figures. Ancient gods and deities were often shown as human-animal characters, like ancient Egyptian, Greek, Indian and Chinese gods for example.

We see anthropomorphism in our lives all the time and we don’t even question it. We accept the fact that it is part of our social structure and we don’t even question it.

As children, we all liked books and cartoons that had talking animals. We’d dress up in animal costumes as mascots, for cos-play and a variety of other reasons. There’s a huge market for dog and cat outfits, pet strollers and beds. We even ask questions like “if your rabbit could talk, what would be the first thing it would say?”

We like applying human characteristics onto non-human objects as part of that evolution because it can fulfill a social need. Some scientists believe that the lonelier we feel, the more we crave relationships, and that’s when we start attributing human-like features (like emotions) to our pets. Even though this in itself is not a problem, because the majority of us do it, it’s hard to separate what is fact from fiction.

This can lead to problems. Even though animals share a lot of the same mental faculties as humans, we have the tendency to read animals based on human ways of thinking and behaving, which could lead to people exaggerating the similarities and misunderstand the true meanings of the animal behaviour. We even project our own personality characteristics onto our pets, and misunderstand what the truth really is.

Anthropomorphism is not supported by scientific knowledge, but a human need to “relate with someone that is easily understandable and that easily understands us. This may lead to interpretative biases of the animal’s actual state, which are often aimed to satisfy the human need for a certain type of relationship, rather than trying to acknowledge, recognize and appease the animal’s actual emotions, motivations, and intentions.” (PubMed Central).

Do animals have emotions?

Scientists and researchers agree that animals have cognition, and agree that animals “think”. That is because they react to their environment, interact with one another, and experience different emotions like stress, fear and depression.

Animals communicate emotion to one another, and it is believed that this is not language because it does not have verbal speech. However, they do use signals to warn or manipulate other animals (like the thump of a rabbits back feet when it is warning others). They cannot vary these sounds, or make verbal changes with different tones and pitches, and scientists believe that this is what constitutes a language.

Here’s a list of some of the emotions:

• anger
• happiness
• embarrassment
• fear
• disgust
• shame
• sadness
• anxiety
• love
• surprise
• envy
• depression
• pride
• frustration
• boredom
• jealousy
• hatred
• compassion
• loneliness
• satisfaction
• contempt
• annoyance
• self-confidence
• miserable
• worried
• offended
• aversion
• calm
• content
• pleased
• alarmed
• tired
• guilt

When you own a rabbit, you will see it display some if not all of these emotions, but are we just anthropomorphising? How do we know?

The anthropomorphic connection

Humans anthropomorphise animals due to their phylogenetic, appearance, and behavioural similarities, and this would explain why people anthropomorphise animals they live with. Animals have a child-like appearance, due to their large eyes, which makes humans want to protect them. Dogs especially have developed human-like facial expressions, for example, retracting the levator anguli oculi medialis which allows dogs to move their eyebrows in a way that simulates the human expression for sadness, or to raise it so their eyes become larger. This triggers caring feelings for human adults.

People who display extreme anthropomorphic tendencies seem to treat their animal to breath-freshening foods, jewelry, pet cologne, designer clothes, fashions, diapers, shampoos, nail polish, coat dyes, birthday cakes, and shoes, to name a few, and these are not always beneficial for the animal.

Problems arise when the human’s behaviour is incompatible with the animal’s needs and it affects their welfare. On the flip side, some anthropomorphism has increased human interaction with their animals which has encouraged them to be interested in positive thinking towards animal rights and adoption.

Anthropomorphism can be detrimental to animal welfare

Anthropomorphism places unrealistic and unfair expectations on animals. When we anthropomorphise our pets, it gives us unrealistic beliefs that those animals have to live up to. Just like we wouldn’t want to live like a dog, we shouldn’t expect a dog to act like a human, as they are not the same as us. This expectation makes it impossible for the animal to live up to the standards of a human, and this in turn causes a variety of problems.

Behavioural Problems

Many behavioural problems with pets stem from anthropomorphism. We put unrealistic expectations on our pets. Owners expect the animal to “know better”, “feel guilty”, “know they’re bad”, and never give the animal the chance to express it’s natural behaviours.

All behavioural problems are a lack of training, both for the human and the animal. This is the main reason why animals are surrendered to shelters. Anthropomorphism is a huge threat to animal welfare.

Health Problems

Anthropomorphism can lead to many animal owners to overfeed their pets. It also can lead them to feed the wrong foods and provide the incorrect diet. Vets are seeing an increase of overweight animals, and this is becoming a significant issue. Vet will prescribe special diets for the pet so it loses weight and can live a healthier lifestyle, this in turn has made huge profits for specialty food manufacturers and pet food companies.

By feeding the incorrect diet, pets can get digestive issues like diabetes, diarrhoea, pancreatitis, constipation, malnourishment, liver damage, kidney failure and even death.

Vets are even seeing a lot of carnivorous animals, like dogs and cats, who should eat meat, are fed a vegan or vegetarian diet. This shows that the owner is anthropomorphising their pet and putting their beliefs on an animal that clearly cannot eat those foods. This does not suit the animals nutritional needs, and will ultimately kill the animal due to the fact that their carnivorous digestive system cannot support huge quantities of plant material. The animal will end up dying sooner than expected.

Another form of anthropomorphism is applying cosmetics to pets, such as coat dyes, nail polish and lotions. These can be extremely harmful to animals.

Vet Visits

Vets will always recommend ways to train animals. They only do that if they see that the animal has behavioural problems that can be dangerous to the owner, to everyone in the veterinary clinic, and to the animal itself.

Anthropomorphism affects how the owner views their animal, and how they understand the recommendations by thinking “she’ll never do that”, “he won’t bite”, “he knows better”. Or even the fact that the vet is giving advice, the owner may even think “I don’t want someone telling me what to do, they don’t know my pet like I do”.

Pet Owners

When more people realise how important it is to not anthropomorphise their pets, it may become agreed that animals deserve habeas corpus, a civil right to get persons imprisoned for mistreating their animal. It is likely that owners could be removed from making decisions about what is best for their pet. Animal welfare activists think that this could be a problem because the new carer may not know anything about the care of the animal and its requirements. On the flip side, if someone is anthropomorphising their animal to a level that hebas corpus is enacted, the animal could only be given a better life.

There is also a push from changing the word “owner” to “guardian” when it comes to animals. The term “guardian” insinuates that the animal is not the property of the person it lives with, and the animal has some sort of personhood – the quality or condition of being an individual person.

This will cause issues for vets, because their professional liability insurance only covers pets as property. By changing “owner” to “guardian” and giving the pet personhood, may force the way pain and suffering is understood and make it equivalent to human practice. Vets would have to be insured differently, and therefore pay higher insurance rates. This, of course will be passed to the client, and discourage more people from taking their animal to the vet.

Either way, pets lose.

Crime and Domestic Terrorism

We don’t think about how anthropomorphism can be used for illegal and dangerous activities. There are animal rights groups, along with their group members who are now on the wanted list for domestic terrorism.

All because these people had extreme anthropomorphism beliefs, and in the name of animal rights, they committed serious crimes. They broke into research facilities to save “enslaved” animals, stole them, unwittingly released infectious diseases into the public, and then fire-bombed many facilities. This behaviour extended to other businesses, consumers, farmers, and even animal owners. All of this occurred because they believed “that the animals have the same consciousness and emotional wellbeing as humans” (protecttheharvest.com).

According to Protect The Harvest extreme anthropomorphism ideologies stem from the belief that animals are the same as human beings, and should have equal rights. Animal rights activists refer to the human “emotions” of animals. Because of this, they see animal ownership as “enslavement”. In their minds, it applies to all animals, including pet owners, animal exhibitors, scientists and farmers.

Generating Donations

Protect the Harvest goes on to explain that by influencing people to believe that animals have human traits, animal rights organisations generate donations. By showing images and heavily edited videos that cause emotional distress they create propaganda that stimulates people to feel guilt and empathy, and if they donate money they can help the cause.

These organisations spend that money to lobby and write legislature to get them closer to “animal liberation”. The use the same techniques to influence lawmakers and voters.

Clothing and Thermoregulation

Dressing pets in clothes raises the moisture levels in the skin and increase adhesion between the cloth and the animal’s skin, which can be uncomfortable and in extreme cases, cause lesions. The natural hair follicles, sweat glands, and even the pH level can be altered dramatically by the animal wearing fabrics.

When animals wear clothes, heat accumulates because the skin is unable to maintain a stable body temperature. Animal’s hair regulates heat, and if it is covered by fabric, it changes the ability to expel the heat effectively. If heat build up too quickly, it can cause heatstroke, or even death in less than an hour.

If an animal is wearing fabrics and goes outside, it can cause inflammatory and hemostatic processes like blood clots. It can also cause over heating, because they cannot expel the heat from their legs and feet at a fast enough pace to keep it regulated. This has an effect on the nervous system and it cannot pass the correct information to the hypothalamus in the brain, which tells the body if it’s too hot or too cold.

Mobility

By carrying your pet around in a bag, carrying it around in your arms, patting it on your lap or having them in strollers for long periods can affect the behaviour and welfare of the animal.

Animals are made to move around, and if you inhibit their ability to move, it can lead to emotional disorders, such as phobias or anxiety.

Animals are meant to have their limbs in natural positions, and if this is inhibited due to being transported in unnatural postures, this can effect the musculoskeletal, metabolic and biomechanical systems. This also affects their digestion, and several major organs may start to fail.

Anthropomorphic traits such as inhibiting animals to move properly has a dire effect on the wellbeing and lifespan of the animal.

Cosmetics

In many countries, pets have become as important as family members, this includes projecting human beauty standards onto them.

Beauty regimes are completely different to maintaining animal health, and these anthropomorphic practices have sparked loud, sometimes violent confrontations between those who believe it to be beneficial to the animal, and those who think it is cruelty.

Countries in Asia, such as Japan, Korea and China believe that dying pet’s hair is beautiful. These pet owners are unaware of the harmful effects of the active ingredients in those products.

Because humans focus on aesthetics they neglect to consider the effects these chemicals have on the glands, paw pads, ears and anus of the animal. The odors alone from the dyes, the shampoos, colognes, lotions or perfumes that may be applied can severely affect the animal’s olfactory senses.

By applying nail polish to an animal’s nails, can harm their organs and have toxic effects on reproduction. The chemical in nail polish called dibutyl phthalate (DnBP), stops nails chipping but is extremely hazardous to animals. It alone can cause organs to shut down and even death.

Zoonotic Anthropomorphism

Letting animals share your bed is a huge issue with them spreading disease. The anthropomorphic concept that animals need this level of comfort compromises human health. Somewhere around 62% of pet owners in the USA, UK, France and Holland share their beds with animals, this means 78 million dog owners and 95 million cat owners admitted in a study that they share their beds with their animals. This has been identified as a main cause of disease transmission, in fact, scientific reports reported that around 60% of infectious diseases in humans are caused by the fungi, viruses and bacteria transmitted through animals sharing their beds.

When veterinarians find out that their client shares a bed with their animal, they try to draw attention to the fact that animals carry zoonotic diseases, and that they actually are quite infectious. Of course people disagree with the vets and believe that their pet in particular is not sick, and would never do that. However, this is not the case.

Zoonotic diseases are naturally transmissible between vertebrate animals and humans, they can be parasitic, bacterial and viral. When pet owners do not, or refuse to understand the normal behaviour of their animals, they run a huge risk of contracting disease. An example if this is, it is normal biological behaviour for dogs and cats to lick their anus. This means that gastrointestinal bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli, Clostridium, and Campylobacter can be present in their oral cavity. When human allow their pets to lick their mouths and lips, humans catch and then become carriers of these diseases.

Bubonic plague is transmitted by the bites of fleas from infected cats and dogs that share their owner’s beds. Dogs rarely show signs of infection; however, cats do. According to the World Health Organisation, over 2,000 people report to have the bubonic plague (black plague) each year, although they suspect the number to be far higher, and the one thing all of these people have in common is that they share their beds with pets.