For example, pet owners develop representations of find more what those pets like, want, understand, and have tendencies to do. This may have several anthropomorphic outcomes, such as empathy for the pet’s feelings, the use

of agentive language to describe the pet’s behavior, and the inclusion of the pet as an actor in certain social interactions (e.g. Serpell 2003). Hunters, herders, birders, naturalists, field biologists and other stakeholders in natural habitats may also anthropomorphize. These people spend long periods of time experiencing the same conditions as the species they are guiding or seeking. In this way, they develop an empathetic understanding of how other species behave and react—fearfully, gracefully, playfully and so on—through sharing of experiences (Ingold 2000; Sapolsky 2001; Lorimer 2006; Candea 2010). Many people develop anthropomorphic understandings of species through their representations rather than through interactions in nature.

Cultural products that include, for example, representations of pandas, range from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) logo to nature documentaries, from YH25448 supplier cheese commercials (i.e. Panda Cheese) to plush toys. Each of these represents only some of all possible attributes of real pandas, and may add humanlike attributes. These edited and anthropomorphized pandas are either deliberately designed or culturally evolved to suit social, cultural and economic roles and desires (Brown 2010). One example is the WWF logo, where the panda was modified over time to mirror the change in the NGO’s structure, from what was initially a shoe-string outfit to a professionalized Selleck PX-478 organization with an increasingly

corporate structure (Nicholls 2011). Another example is the way the sexual and reproductive behaviors of the two pandas at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. were covered by the press, using language used to describe human sexuality, allegorizing panda behaviors in until terms of contemporary human social issues and mores in attempts to dramatize the story to promote public identification with the pandas. However, the human cultural representations of the mating process do not adequately describe natural panda mating behaviors. While the language used in the press represented the pandas’ mating behaviors in a way that was easily identifiable to humans, it did not promote an understanding of the species true to its natural behavior (Chris 2006). Hypothetically, a greeting card company might consequently see pandas as an efficient and affecting conveyor of a “congratulations on your new baby” message, and might legitimize, contextualize or increase the effectiveness of the panda in this social role by depicting two panda parents holding hands, leaning over a baby panda in a stroller. This process of editing away non-human features and adding humanlike features can be thought of as an “anthropomorphic creep.