A Cross-Cultural Replication on Humanness Attribution The Role of Agency and Communion Ascriptions

Previous research showed that targets achieving (vs. not) a goal were ascribed more humanness. We conceptually replicate previous studies by involving a population of English and Arabic speakers to test cross-cultural replicability of the effect and the contribution of sensorimotor systems in agency representation. Participants (Ntot = 637) saw animations, where goal achievement and trajectory were manipulated. They evaluated agency, communion, humanness, and attitudes (respect and liking) toward presented targets. Goal achievement versus failure but not movement trajectory increased agency and communion ratings, which in turn affected humanness, respect, and liking (Study 1 and Study 2). Goal manipulation also directly affected humanness ratings (Study 2). Altogether, our findings suggest a superior role of success over trajectory manipulation in perceiving inanimate objects as having humanness.