The Lives of Things

Storms rage and floods take their toll - is this nature taking its revenge? Michael Blastland turns the lens of psychology on how we treat objects and other entities as if they are 'alive'. Not just the weather - we rail against a crashed laptop, dote on our cars and have conversations with our pets. Why do we anthropomorphise the things around us? In fact, we tend to exaggerate what psychologists call 'agency' in all kinds of ways - as if there's a mind behind what goes on in the world, with feelings and intentions. Does this mean we see conspiracy, blame, praise, and power where it doesn't belong? Michael Blastland investigates with resident Zoo psychologist Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, and roving reporter Timandra Harkness. Producer: Dom Byrne A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

You can listen to The Lives of Things online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Lives of Things is an episode from The Human Zoo by BBC.

This episode is 27:28 long.

This episode was published on Dec 15, 2015.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Human Zoo when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.