Creating social connection through inferential reproduction: loneliness and perceived agency in gadgets, gods, and greyhounds.
-- Nicholas Epley, Scott Akalis, Adam Waytz and John T Cacioppo Psychol Sci 19, (2008)
People are motivated to maintain social connection with others, and those who lack social connection with other humans may try to compensate by creating a sense of human connection with nonhuman agents. This may occur in at least two ways-by anthropomorphizing nonhuman agents such as nonhuman animals and gadgets to make them appear more humanlike and by increasing belief in commonly anthropomorphized religious agents (such as God).