Hi friends! Welcome back to another Sociology of X blog post. In this blog, we're going to be discussing the sociology of The Uncanny Valley! I have spoken about this briefly in the past - but today's the day we're going to do a deep dive!
I first learned about The Uncanny Valley hypothesis in a 200-level psychology class - and here we are - another full circle moment #uncannyvalley #socialscience #academic
Some Examples of Uncanny Valley TikToks
https://www.tiktok.com/@jaydencroes/video/7308835853713853702?q=uncanny%20valley&t=1726463893395 from user jaydencroes
https://www.tiktok.com/@true.neva/video/7305690359001107714?q=uncanny%20valley&t=1726463893395 from user true.neva
https://www.tiktok.com/@blondeicedcoffee/video/7300782669829328134?q=uncanny%20valley%20robots&t=1726464102751 from user blondeicedcoffee
https://www.tiktok.com/@rjchumbley/video/7303262517533576494?q=uncanny%20valley%20couple&t=1726464215253 from user rjchumbley
Do any of the above clips freak you out? Or evoke some kind of discomfort in your being? Did you feel a sense of unease or eeriness as you were watching? Well, let's explore why!
Introduction
Today, we're diving deep into a topic that both fascinates and freaks people out—the uncanny valley. Why do robots, dolls, and digital avatars that almost look human make us feel so uneasy and uncomfortable? What’s really going on in our brains? And more importantly, how does society shape this strange reaction?
So, first things first. What exactly is the uncanny valley? It’s a term coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in the 1970s. It refers to this weird dip in our comfort level when we encounter something that looks almost human—but not quite. And what's even weirder about it, is that there are different levels of discomfort meaning that some people (like myself) are more susceptible to the uncanny valley effect than others. Furthermore, the closer a robot resembles a human, the less likely humans are to trust them but if a robot has a bit of a cutesy vibe, we would be more willing to trust them.
The Wikipedia definition is as follows:
Basically, the closer a robot or avatar looks to being human without fully getting there, the more it creeps us out. It’s that space between 'Hey, cool!' and 'Yikes, what is that?' But here's the thing: our reaction to the uncanny valley isn’t just biological. It's deeply influenced by culture and society too.
We’ve been making humanoid figures forever, with ancient dolls and now we have advanced AI-driven robots and CGI characters. But as technology improved and these creations became more lifelike, we started to feel... uneasy.
The sociology of the uncanny valley is all about understanding how this discomfort isn’t just about physical appearance—it’s about social expectations, norms, and even power dynamics. Let's explore.
Expectation vs Reality
So why does the uncanny valley make us so uncomfortable? One theory in sociology is that it’s all about mismatched expectations. We have certain rules and norms for how human beings behave (Chung & Rimal, 2016). When something looks almost human but doesn't act quite right—maybe its movements are stiff or its expressions are off—our brains get confused (Mathur et al., 2020). It’s kind of like seeing someone break the social script (or social norm), and it freaks us out. For example, CGI characters that aren't quite there yet - such as the cartoons in the movie The Polar Express, felt off. Our brains wanted them to act and look exactly like humans, but they didn’t, and so we got weirded out. I'm sorry to my pen pal who absolutely loves this movie - the movie is nice for sure, but the cartoons just freak me out to this day and whenever I start thinking about it, I feel weird.
In short, we don't expect something that isn't human but almost looks human to behave in certain ways and in turn, it elicits/triggers a fear response in us. The Uncanny Valley effect blurs the line between fascination and discomfort.
Social Norms + Human Identity
The Uncanny Valley goes deeper than just discomfort and "weird vibes" - and taps into something more "primal" or "natural" - an understanding of what it means to be human. Many sociologists (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) have argued that people will participate in both ingroup and outgroup types of behaviours - a sort of "us" vs "them" phenomenon where people will often show solidarity within their social group. It's a form of social identity theory (Stets & Burke, 2000). Whether it’s humans vs animals, humans vs machines, or even different social groups, these boundaries help us define our identity - and even though this view can be problematic in soooo many ways, it can help us understand why we may experience the uncanny valley effect. We see robots as different from us - we see them as robots and that's distinguishable from human form.
So when a robot or digital avatar starts to look human, it messes with these boundaries. We start to ask, 'Is this thing alive? Is it one of us? Could it replace us?' These are deep, existential questions about what it means to be human, and the uncanny valley forces us to confront them.
Robots + Power Dynamics
Another interesting angle is how the uncanny valley reflects social power dynamics. Think about it: robots and AI are becoming a bigger part of our everyday lives, from customer service to healthcare to even driving our cars. These machines are getting more human-like, but they’re also symbols of control and labour. Many sociologists believe that part of our discomfort comes from the fact that we see these almost-human machines as both competitors and tools. On one hand, they’re helpful. On the other, they’re kind of threatening because they blur the line between human autonomy and technological control. We don't mind robots doing boring, mundane tasks that we don't enjoy doing, but when they do the cool stuff like writing OR we think that they might like to feel something, we're like wait no, stop!
Evolutionary Psychology Perspectives!
Yep, as a social scientist, we can also use other perspectives to help understand things and now we're going to discuss some evolutionary psychology/cognitive conflict perspectives - what's really going on in our brain?
The Threat Avoidance Hypothesis - this hypothesis posits that such an object may pose a threat to humans, e.g., seeing a humanoid figure may trigger a pathogen avoidance response, where people associate such beings with disease and in turn, want to avoid that. It's quite biased. Basically, humans see robot/figure X as a threat and their influence of threats skyrockets and so they avoid X because it's seen as a threat.
The Evolutionary Aesthetics Hypothesis - this hypothesis is all about perceived attractiveness - if a human views a humanoid figure as attractive, then such figures are less eerie, which is judged on "typical" attraction markers such as facial proportions, skin quality, and symmetry.
The Mind Perception Hypothesis - this hypothesis posits the idea that when a human sees something sooo lifelike, they become scared that they are going to be able to think and feel in the same way that we as humans do. Wanna watch Westworld, anyone?
The Violation of Expectation Hypothesis - this hypothesis is exactly how it sounds, people have certain expectations of how people behave and it goes so far as people expecting robots to act like people, but when they don't, they act mechanical, people experience a range of discomforts.
Deepfakes
Now, we've got that out of the way I want to quickly talk about Deepfakes and YES, I have written about this before. You can check out my article "Deepfakes: Dangers, Deceptions, and Digital Disarray" where I mainly talk about the pros and cons of deepfakes but there are also some interesting examples! But what about Deepfakes and the Uncanny Valley? Because surely, they have some sort of connection with what I've discussed here!
I think that deep fakes are a new type of "Uncanny Valley" - a world that people are still learning to navigate. Sidenote - I am still not over that South Australian politician claiming that a video of him next to some "white powder" was a deep fake - because it clearly wasn't altered and even forensics said nothing was digitally manipulated. But it's uncanny valley in a different way - because it's still unsettling BUT it's unsettling because it's a likeness to what you look like but it isn't 100% you. For example, think about those deepfakes of Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Margot Robbie - they all have a degree of likeness or similarity to the real actors, but something feels off - you instinctively get a feeling of "this isn't quite right" or some sort of unease whether it's a pit in your stomach or just questioning it. This new way of feeling uncanny valley can be in different forms - such as disgust, confusion, shock and so on. Hutch (2024) says:
"the unsettling visceral response is due to the acknowledgment that deepfake media presents such a powerful semblance of reality that it can sway other people’s beliefs about the things you’ve said or done, the places you’ve been, or the ideologies or opinions that you hold. Your identity, your brand, and your entire reputation could be drastically altered or even destroyed by this technology in an instant. Unfortunately, in the court of public opinion, perception is reality. With this technology, any moderately tech-savvy person can now transform the perception of anyone, and more specifically, they can transform their perception of you."
The implications are terrifying when you put it that way.
What about the rise of the uncanny valley trend online? Specifically TikTok!
Now, we all know trends tend to come and go, especially on TikTok but as you may have seen at the start of this blog, there are some creepy uncanny valley makeup trends - where people will do makeup in a specific way to make themselves look like a robot and then pair it with a certain sound such as "Brutus" from The Buttress or that "what do you mean, I am a real person sound" and usually some creepy jump scare to go with.
According to "this article", the uncanny valley makeup trend began with TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@blonde.girlyy/video/7295565243479199019 from user
blonde.girlyy. I don't know why this particular user started it, but we must look at the social context of the time. The trend began sometime in 2023 when there was a really big rise in AI news - and this news was everywhere. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some fear-mongering going on, especially in a post-pandemic world. So in my "expert" opinion, I think that there was a bit of reaction against that that manifested itself in this Uncanny Valley TikTok trend. Furthermore, there may have even been a reaction from the rise in plastic surgery with things like lip fillers and botox becoming something a lot more people were getting. In turn, people may have been struggling with what's real and what's fake and then just wanted to do something as a kind of catalyst event/reaction. So as I said before, this isn't uncanny valley in the same way that we experience in with a humanoid robot figure, but much more a new type of uncanny valley.
Let's take a look at some more examples
https://www.tiktok.com/@jaydencroes/video/7318115258495782149?q=uncanny%20valley%20trend&t=1726624464873 from user jaydencroes
https://www.tiktok.com/@_evaat__/video/7371106871039528224?q=uncanny%20valley&t=1726624648839 from user evaat_
https://www.tiktok.com/@mimiermakeup/video/7299531353689787681?q=uncanny%20valley%20makeup&t=1726624805436 from user mimiermakeup
Conclusion/Reflection
In conclusion, this blog post has addressed the concept of the uncanny valley effect, defining it and exploring several sociological aspects that contribute to the eerie feeling it evokes in individuals. These aspects include the interplay between "expectation vs reality," the influence of social norms and human identity, and the role of robots and power dynamics. The discussion then delved into evolutionary psychology viewpoints, examined the phenomenon of deepfakes, and touched upon the emerging trend of uncanny valley makeup, supported by relevant examples throughout the text.
Thank you for reading/watching!
Much love,
Ash xoxo
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References/Readings
Chung, A. C. A., & Rimal, R. N. R. R. N. (2016). Social norms: A review. Review of Communication Research, 4, 01-28.
Mathur, M. B., Reichling, D. B., Lunardini, F., Geminiani, A., Antonietti, A., Ruijten, P. A., ... & Aczel, B. (2020). Uncanny but not confusing: Multisite study of perceptual category confusion in the Uncanny Valley. Computers in Human Behavior, 103, 21-30.
Mori, M., MacDorman, K. F., & Kageki, N. (2012). The uncanny valley [from the field]. IEEE Robotics & automation magazine, 19(2), 98-100.
Stets, J. E., & Burke, P. J. (2000). Identity theory and social identity theory. Social psychology quarterly, 224-237.
Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational identity: A reader, 56-65.
Trepte, S. (2013). Social identity theory. In Psychology of entertainment (pp. 255-271). Routledge.
Vaitonytė, J., Alimardani, M., & Louwerse, M. M. (2023). Scoping review of the neural evidence on the uncanny valley. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 9, 100263.
Wang, S., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Rochat, P. (2015). The uncanny valley: Existence and explanations. Review of General Psychology, 19(4), 393-407.
Zhang, J., Li, S., Zhang, J. Y., Du, F., Qi, Y., & Liu, X. (2020). A literature review of the research on the uncanny valley. In Cross-Cultural Design. User Experience of Products, Services, and Intelligent Environments: 12th International Conference, CCD 2020, Held as Part of the 22nd HCI International Conference, HCII 2020, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 19–24, 2020, Proceedings, Part I 22 (pp. 255-268). Springer International Publishing.
https://marenhogan.medium.com/the-uncanny-valley-of-generative-ai-d5306e0a4ca2
https://blog.trace3.com/a-deepfake-dilemma-navigating-the-new-uncanny-valley
https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/tiktok-uncanny-valley-makeup-trend/
It's so cool how there's a term for this - thanks for explaining, it's very interesting! I'm a little bit freaked out by it!