Animals in Dangerous Postures Enhance Learning, but Decrease Willingness to Protect Animals

Prokop, Pavol; Fančovičová, Jana

doi:10.12973/eurasia.2017.01000a

Cited by 22 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(49 reference statements)

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“…When an animal species is projected as aggressive, a negative emotional experience can be produced in the public. This negative experience may in turn lead the individual to believe the species is a dangerous agent or threat to human life, bringing about attitudes against its conservation ( Prokop and Fančovičová, 2017 ). On the contrary, if wildlife species are positively seen by children through different media outlets, where the real facts about unpopular animals are shown, it is more likely that fear and disgust decrease, while empathy may grow ( Prokop et al, 2011 ).…”

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Human Emotions for Wildlife Conservation

et al. 2020

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Animals have always been important for human life due to the ecological, cultural, and economic functions that they represent. This has allowed building several kinds of relationships that have promoted different emotions in human societies. The objective of this review was to identify the main emotions that humans show toward wildlife species and the impact of such emotions on animal population management. We reviewed academic databases to identify previous studies on this topic worldwide. An analysis of the emotions on wildlife and factors causing them is described in this study. We identified a controversy about these emotions. Large predators such as wolves, coyotes, bears, big felids, and reptiles, such as snakes and geckos, promote mainly anger, fear, and disgust. This is likely due to the perceptions, beliefs, and experiences that societies have historically built around them. However, in some social groups these animals have promoted emotions such as happiness due to their values for people. Likewise, sadness is an emotion expressed for the threatening situations that animals are currently facing. Furthermore, we associated the conservation status of wildlife species identified in the study with human emotions to discuss their relevance for emerging conservation strategies, particularly focused on endangered species promoting ambiguous emotions in different social groups.

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Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Human Emotions for Wildlife Conservation

et al. 2020

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“…Recognized means of acquiring knowledge about animals, especially vertebrates, include parental interactions [19, 23, 24]; direct interactions with species in everyday situations [13, 17], including activities such as fishing, feeding animals, and observing wildlife [25]; fictional stories [26]; access to the media [22, 26, 27]; non-formal education strategies such as museums, parks, and zoos; and, especially, access to formal education [3, 20, 25, 28] including images of animals in textbooks [29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wild vertebrates and their representation by urban/rural students in a region of northeast Brazil

Oliveira

Lopes

Barboza

et al. 2019

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

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BackgroundRecognition of the diversity of living beings, including the classification and naming of species, is a fundamental condition for biological literacy with the aim of developing critical awareness of human relationships with nature, and for which formal education plays an important role. The present study aimed to analyze the representation that urban/rural students have for wild vertebrates and their main sources of knowledge.MethodsData collection took place in three public schools, one urban and two rural, in the municipality of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil. Questionnaires were given to 990 students (528 urban and 462 rural), distributed among all the grades that comprise middle school (Ensino Fundamental II, grades 6–9) and high school (Ensino Médio, grades 10–12) education.ResultsA total of 5877 citations were mentioned by the students, which corresponded to 224 distinct animals with 166 (72.0%) being wild vertebrates, 24 (25.7%) being domestic vertebrates, and 34 (2.3%) being invertebrates. Mammals and reptiles had the greatest observed richness of citations, while mammals (H′ = 3.37), birds (H′ = 2.84), and invertebrates (H′ = 2.94) had the greatest diversity. Positive correlations were found between citations of wild vertebrates and family income (rt = 0.06; P < 0.05) and curricular development (rs = 0.08; P < 0.01); negative correlations were found between curricular development and citations of domestic animals (rs = − 0.22; rs = − 0.11 P < 0.01) and between age group and citations of invertebrates (r = − 0.14; rs = − 0.11 P < 0.01). As for the sources of knowledge regarding the animals indicated by the students, “media,” “daily experiences,” “tradition” (here understood as knowledge resulting from interactions with parents and experienced community members), and “formal education” stood out.ConclusionsComprehension of vertebrate diversity is a fundamental condition for the development of attitudes compatible with its conservation, which emphasizes the importance of biological literacy in achieving this purpose.

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“…These animals represent common and typical species for each category. We chose only animals displaying neutral postures to avoid biases in responses to aggressive looking animals (Masataka et al, 2010;Prokop & Fančovičová, 2017). Each…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been speculated that danger from animals is elicited by certain harmful shapes, such as teeth, claws or spikes (Prokop & Fančovičová, 2017;Souchet & Aubret, 2016;Štefaniková & Prokop, 2015). Indeed, detection of a snake among fear-irrelevant distractors (e.g., flowers, mushrooms) on a touchscreen was consistently faster than vice versa (LoBue & DeLoache, 2008;LoBue & Rakison, 2013;Öhman et al, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Animals with a low aesthetic value (Gunnthorsdottir, 2001;Knight, 2008;Prokop & Fančovičová, 2013b), and/or those looking dangerous (Prokop & Fančovičová, 2017) reduce, however, human willingness to protect them. This is particularly important for improving attitudes toward invertebrates, because people's negative attitudes toward a majority of these creatures (Borgi & Cirulli, 2015;Kellert, 1993;Schlegel & Rupf, 2010) are influenced by disgust and fear (Davey, 1994;Gerdes et al 2009;Lorenz et al 2014;Prokop & Jančovičová, 2013b;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Natural Selection Influences the Reactions of Children to Potentially Dangerous Animals

Prokop

2018

EURASIA J MATH SCI T

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Certain animals have represented a danger to humans in terms of a predation and pathogen threat over our evolutionary history. It is therefore adaptive for people to respond to a potential threat faster than to harmless events. Using simple choice tasks, the reaction time of children to predators, disease carriers and aposematically coloured animals were investigated. Children reacted the fastest to predators, followed by disease carriers and finally aposematically coloured animals. Furthermore, children manifested the highest accuracy when distinguishing predators from non-predators, followed by disease carriers and harmless animals, with the most errors occurring when identifying the aposematically coloured from non-aposematically coloured animals. Importantly, children more vulnerable to infectious diseases responded to disease carriers faster than healthier children. These results suggest that children are skilled in distinguishing potential danger from non-danger and that the behavioural immune system influences reaction times in visual contact with the pathogen threat.

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Animals in Dangerous Postures Enhance Learning, but Decrease Willingness to Protect Animals

Cited by 22 publications

References 45 publications

The Importance of Human Emotions for Wildlife Conservation

The Importance of Human Emotions for Wildlife Conservation

Wild vertebrates and their representation by urban/rural students in a region of northeast Brazil

Natural Selection Influences the Reactions of Children to Potentially Dangerous Animals

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