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Anthropomorphism is about attributing human emotions to other animals.

I have a one-month old baby at home, and was wondering if there was a corresponding word for attributing adult human emotions to infants? If I say "she looks guilty", am I being adultomorphic?

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I think babies should have human emotions. – KitFox♦ Mar 12 at 16:03
You need a Greek stem for -morph-, but enilikomorphism isn't very helpful. – Andrew Leach Mar 12 at 17:50
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I just spent some time digging through a bunch of academic works on this. None of them used a single term. That doesn't mean one doesn't exist, but it may indicate that it's not in common use. – Marcus_33 Mar 12 at 19:42
KitFox: Babies have human emotions, but they do not have all grown-up emotions, eg guilt, sexual desire, etc. – gb01 Mar 13 at 2:27

1 Answer

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You can perhaps call it personification which sounds less unwieldy than anthropomorphism:

the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form

Also related is the term, pathetic fallacy:

the attribution of human feelings and responses to inanimate things or animals, especially in art and literature.

Here, the word pathetic is being used in its archaic sense.

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Pathetic fallacy seem to be a good candidate, but maybe a bit too wide (it includes anthropomorphism). – gb01 Mar 13 at 2:30

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