An example of anthropomorphism (and a a potential misconception) from science journalism,
"To make a better battery for mobile applications such as phones, laptops or electric vehicles, the defining design parameter is to pack the maximum electrical energy into the smallest, lightest package possible. If you were to go back to the periodic table, and design such a battery from scratch, it is still hard to go past lithium…. It's the smallest, lightest metal – and eager to give up an electron.
…according to conventional wisdom, the surface onto which the lithium is plating should be highly lithophilic, so that the lithium likes to stick. 'Somehow we have imposed a different requirement on the two interfaces involved in lithium plating,' Liu [Prof. Ping Liu, University of California, San Diego] says. The lithium should move fast through the repellent lithium-fluoride-rich [solid electrolyte interface], but then meet a substrate it simply wants to stick to."
James Mitchell Crow (2023) Building better batteries, Chemistry World, 20 (5), https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/building-better-batteries/4017313.article
As well as being anthropomorphic (lithium is said to be eager, to want, to like) this may suggest that a lithium atom will release an electron spontaneously, when this process requires an energy input.
Read examples of anthropomorphism in science
Learners commonly think that atoms will spontaneously release electrons to give octet configurations or full outer shells, and this can be a tenacious alternative conception.
Read about the nature of alternative conceptions
Read about some examples of science misconceptions
Read about historical scientific conceptions
