I was observing a lady cradling a baby in her arms, looking into his eyes, and talking to him. Just talking and talking to him.

Of course she knew that the baby couldn’t understand a word, but that didn’t deter her from acting like he did.

And that isn’t an uncommon scene - I’ve often witnessed women carry on conversations with babies. Some men do that too, but that seems more uncommon.

Admittedly, I’ve tried to do that myself. I enjoy carrying babies (provided they don’t puke or pee on me), and there was a time when I tried to talk to that adorable little thing, but, I found it really awkward, and it was only marginally easier than talking to, say, a dog or teddy bear or maybe an airconditioner.

But wait, my girl friends talk to dogs too. Fine, I talk to dogs as well. Maybe command would be a better word, since what I say is restricted to come! here! there! and the dog’s name. In other words, words that I think the dog might understand.

But when some girls talk to the dog, it’s no less than a conversation, which may sound something like “hi darling, how are you? Were you lonely today? You miss me har? Aww you’re so sweet. I’m glad to see you too. Come, let mommy give you a treat…”

Then one day this friend of mine showed me a little teddy bear she had in her bag. She didn’t just show it to me, she introduced him to me.

“Say hi to Paul*!”
(* Name changed to protect the innocent teddy bear.)

“Ermmm… how do you know it’s a male?” I had trouble saying hi, nor could I quite tell the gender from the area between the legs.

“He is lah,” she was unperturbed by my question, and proceeded on to talk to the both of us, probably hoping that Paul would get along with me, especially after I insulted his manhood.

Airconditioners aren’t spared either.

I remember reading a post by this blogger relating how her airconditioner malfunctioned, and she started talking to it, eventually shouting at it.

Which reminded me of a collegue, who, when her computer monitor blacked out, started patting it and saying “Oey! Don’t like that leh! Wake up! Wake up!”

To the male reader, all these may sound rather silly, but my purpose in writing this is not to offend my female friends (I wouldn’t dare!), but more to explore how the tendency to anthropomorphize* (fine, talking to babies isn’t technically athropomorhism) could be linked to other human traits.
(* To anthropomorphize an object is to give the object some human characteristics, such as the ability to understand speech.)

Other human traits like empathy. I am certain that an anthropomorphic tendency is positively correlated to the ability to empathize with others. I think the link is quite obvious - if I can talk to a teddy bear, giving him a name along with imagined feelings and the imagined ability to understand my speech, it shouldn’t be difficult for me to put myself in the proverbial shoes of another in empathy.

Let me step out further on the limb.

I suspect that the anthropomorphic tendency is also correlated to the belief in the supernatural or the existence of deity. Of course, this does not affect the question of whether the supernatural or deity actually exists - I’m just saying that it seems easier for a person with a stronger tendency to anthropomorphize to believe in the supernatural or the existence of deity.

Maybe I’ll ask Nicole my pillow her opinion on this later tonight.