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The purpose of this paper is to tackle this question by differentiating the psychological meaning of anthropomorphism from its technical meaning, understood as a human\u2010like device. The author shows that the former generates salient projections which can be interpreted with respect to Mori's uncanny valley. The role of the task is highlighted with a theoretical attempt to integrate the robot as a social player into a Heider balance\u2010theory inspired model. This psychological anthropomorphism, however, must be compared with technical anthropomorphism, which leads to underlining present\u2010day difficulties in designing highly human\u2010like functional machines with, as a consequence, running the risk of giving them the delusion of a human behaviour that they are not able to realize.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>This is a theoretical paper aimed to highlight a double meaning of anthropomorphism for humanoid robots and its consequences.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Task\u2010based interpretation of the Mori's uncanny valley and link between psychological anthropomorphism and technical anthropomorphism.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>The originality of the approach consists in applying to the humanoid robot a double approach of anthropomorphism. The first one corresponds to the classical psychological meaning producing peculiar anthropomorphic projections on a non\u2010human being, while the second corresponds to the technical realization of a human\u2010like machine dedicated to be integrated into a human environment.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/01439911211268840","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,4,23]],"date-time":"2013-04-23T05:32:45Z","timestamp":1366695165000},"page":"609-618","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":24,"title":["Anthropomorphism and service humanoid robots: an ambiguous relationship"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"39","author":[{"given":"Bertrand","family":"Tondu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022020120340944100_b1","unstructured":"Ash, M.G. 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