Cognitive Development 34 (2015) 28–38 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cognitive Development Children attribute mental lives to toys when they are emotionally attached to them Nathalia L. Gjersoe ∗ , Emily L. Hall, Bruce Hood Bristol University Cognitive Development Centre, Bristol University, 12a Priory Road, Bristol BS81TU, UK a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Anthropomorphism Attachment toys Security blankets a b s t r a c t Anthropomorphism of toys has been portrayed in popular cul- ture with notable examples such as children’s fairy stories, and, more recently, in movies like Toy Story. However, studies of chil- dren’s attitudes toward inanimate objects suggest that they do not attribute mental states to toys. In two studies using a mental state induction technique, we demonstrate that children do exhibit this tendency with toys that are also their attachment objects. Attribu- tion of mental states to objects was not simply due to familiarity, category membership, or perceptual similarity to sentient beings, but rather to emotional attachment combined with personifying features such as a face. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction There were few dry eyes in the audience when Jessie, the toy cowgirl in the movie Toy Story 2, recounts the pain of being abandoned by her owner. Children’s movies manipulate with astonishing ease our tendency to attribute mental lives to inanimate objects. Yet, a divide exists within develop- mental literature as to whether young children truly do think of toys as having mental states. Piaget (1930) described widespread animism in childhood on the basis of studies showing that young chil- dren attribute thoughts and feelings to inanimate entities. However, he did not distinguish between animism, which is the attribution of life to the lifeless, and anthropomorphism, which is the attribution ∗ Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Childhood, Development & Learning, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. E-mail addresses: Nathalia.Gjersoe@open.ac.uk (N.L. Gjersoe), Bruce.Hood@bris.ac.uk (B. Hood). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.12.002 0885-2014/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.