Does Beauty Matter? The Effect of Perceived Attractiveness on Children’s Moral Judgments of Harmful Actions against Animals

Abstract

The current research asks whether children’s judgments of harmful actions toward animals depend on animals’ perceived attractiveness. In Study 1, primary school children ( N = 359) rated the perceived attractiveness of six animals and judged how severe it is to hurt them, as compared to moral transgressions, social-conventional transgressions, and personal choices. Hurting attractive animals was perceived as severe as hurting another child, while hurting unattractive animals was evaluated as less serious than social-conventional transgressions. In Study 2, we experimentally tested whether the attractiveness of animals rated as unattractive in Study 1 could be influenced by an environmental education intervention. After the intervention, children in the experimental group ( N = 21) rated unattractive animals as more attractive than before the intervention, and this led to judging harming these animals more severely than before the intervention. No changes were found in the control group ( N = 20).

Innovation for environmental sustainability: longitudinal effects of an education for sustainable development intervention on university students’ pro-environmentalism

“…For example, Hahn and Garrett (2017) conducted an ESD intervention with preschool children, which revealed that taking the perspective of someone whose environment had been polluted and destroyed led to a stronger sense of morality toward the environment and hence, to condemning environmentally harmful actions. Following a similar approach, Collado et al (2021) conducted an ESD intervention with primary school children that investigated whether learning about animals and their relationship to humans (i.e. increasing environmental knowledge) could lead to a stronger sense of moral obligation to treat animals fairly.…”

Cross-Cultural Awareness and Attitudes Toward Threatened Animal Species

“…Previous studies with adults have demonstrated improved liking toward animals when education has both empathy and biological literacy components ( Candea, 2010 ; Root-Bernstein et al, 2013 ; de Pinho et al, 2014 ). Studies with school children further demonstrated the power of education on improving attitudes toward typically disliked animals ( Ballouard et al, 2012 ; Randler et al, 2012 ; Collado et al, 2021 ). Indeed, a great deal of research points to the critical role that early education (both formally and informally) and experiences in natural settings have on shaping attitudes toward animals, and that these experiences shape future thinking ( Dunlap, 1989 ; Soga and Gaston, 2016 ; Whitburn et al, 2020 ).…”

How do children value animals? A developmental review

“…Children are then asked to rate this hypothetical (e.g., "How wrong was it for the person to hit the dog? ", ranging from definitely not okay to definitely okay; Collado et al, 2022;Hussar & Harris, 2018;Sommer et al, 2019). These rankings give insight into how children think about the capacities of and transgressions towards certain entities (i.e., which are acceptable or unacceptable) and enable rough comparisons between them.…”

“…Features deemed attractive appear to include colour variation, infantile features such as large, wide-set eyes, and large body size (Borgi et al, 2014;Henseler Kozachenko & Piazza, 2021). For example, butterflies are often granted higher levels of moral standing than other invertebrates, which may be due to their vibrant colors (Borgi & Cirulli, 2015;Collado et al, 2022). And when pictures of dogs and cats are manipulated to show more infantile features, they are rated as more "cute" by children and are looked at for longer (Borgi et al, 2014).…”

“…Children will also judge moral transgressions as more morally wrong when they are made towards attractive animals. Collado et al (2022) gave children pictures of animals and asked them to rate how attractive they found them. They subsequently heard about moral transgressions committed against the animal.…”