Dancing Bees, Singing Whales: The Impact of Idiosyncratic and Taxonomic Information on Attitudes Toward and Moral Reasoning About Animals.

Abstract

Our willingness to care for the natural world depends, in large part, on our attitudes toward living kinds. In this study, we explored the extent to which learning facts about animals would influence children's and adults' attitudes and moral concerns for the welfare of animals. Participants' (N = 115) attitudes were assessed before and after exposure to different types of information (taxonomic and idiosyncratic) about target animals, and were presented with moral dilemmas about those animals, and an opportunity to donate to animal-related charities. Results showed that idiosyncratic facts led to significantly more positive attitude changes in adults and older children, but not in younger children. Moral judgments against the harm of animals were consistently high across groups, irrespective of information type. Biocentric reasoning was more prevalent than anthropocentric reasoning overall, and younger children showed increased biocentric reasoning, particularly when exposed to taxonomic facts and when they developed more positive attitudes. Donation behavior was also predicted by attitude change across all age groups, with younger children especially influenced by the type of information received. These results have important implications for understanding the psychological processes that underlie how children and adults think about the environment and conditions that threaten the well-being of living kinds.