A study in the February issue of “Psychological Science,” conducted in part by a Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2007 graduate, revealed that lonely people can find comfort in forming connections with inanimate objects. FM decided to ask this researcher what object we should look to for companionship to help us better survive an isolating, depressing days (a.k.a. any day in Cambridge).
Hey, Dr. Scott A. Akalis,
(graduate of the GSAS Psychology and Social Relations department), what object would be best at keeping a lonely student company?
“An inanimate object that is most like a person or is most comparable to a person would be best. I would say an iPod, since you can hear people sing or talk about things. But if it has to be strictly disconnected from human contact, at least things that resemble humans––a stuffed animal, a robot, anything that sort of is sort of human-like or moves, if you were lonely enough to imagine that it provides comfort or understanding.”
