Human or Machine? A Study of Anthropomorphism Through an Affordance Lens

Anthropomorphism—the tendency of humans to apply human-like attributes to non-human objects—has received growing attention by scholars across multiple disciplines. With increasing popularity of service and personal robotics and conversational agents, scholars of information systems have begun to shed light on some of the technology features and processes related to anthropomorphism. This study applies a socio-technical approach using affordance theory to examine the relationship between technology and anthropomorphic perceptions among users. Evidence is gathered from an empirical study involving the introduction of interactive voice response (IVR) with savings clients of a savings and loans company in Ghana. The findings highlight four main ways that the IVR technology exhibited human-like qualities within the user-technology interaction (as perceived by users). This paper illustrates how a study on the relationship between technology and anthropomorphism might be conducted through an affordance perspective. It also offers implications for technology development.