I had a professor at university, intro to Computer Science class. I believe he understood this drive humans have to anthropomorphise, because he gave me some of the best advice I ever had regarding the craft. All beginning programmers will have an aversion to have their code criticised - we feel that our programs are extensions of ourselves, and feel attacked when they are attacked. This professor advised us to think of our programs not as extensions of ourselves, but as our children - independents, who may well go on and have lives of their own beyond our control.
A criticism of our program can then become seen an effort to strengthen our child, not to attack our self. He re-directed our natural desire to anthropomorphise to a more productive direction.
Yes, exactly - he didn't try to stop us from anthropomorphising, he encouraged us to look at it in a different way. The idea was to encourage constructive criticism, and to get us used to letting peers see (and judge) our "babies".