Don't bug me!: The role of names, functions, and feelings in shaping children's and adults' conservation attitudes about unappealing species

Abstract

Current threats to biodiversity are profound, yet relatively little is systematically known from controlled studies about the factors that promote conservation attitudes, moral concern, and environmentalist behavior in relation to endangered species that are unfamiliar or aversive. In two experiments, we drew on cognitive and developmental research to explore the causal influence of scientific naming, and conceptual information about anthropocentric or biocentric functional effects on US urban adults' (Study 1) and 9- to 11-year-old children's (Study 2) attitudes about conserving recently discovered insects. We also explored whether negative emotional reactions outweigh conceptual information about names and functions when predicting conservation concern. In Study 1, scientific labels largely had no effect on urban adults' baseline ambivalence about the importance of conserving unfamiliar arthropods. However, conservation concern was increased by hearing about the insects' functional behavior, particularly anthropocentric functions that benefit humans. Adults' feelings of disgust about the insects negatively predicted conservation attitudes; however, emotions never outweighed conceptual information in predicting adults' attitudes or behavior. Study 2 found that, as with adults, scientific labeling information either had no, or a negative, impact on urban fourth and fifth graders' baseline ambivalence to preserving unknown insects. However, both biocentric and anthropocentric functional information increased concern: Fourth graders were particularly moved by biocentric functions while fifth graders showed a greater anthropocentric bias. Children's emotional reactions were also predictive. Unlike with adults, children's feelings sometimes outweighed effects of conceptual information in predicting conservationist responses. Together, these findings illuminate developmental trajectories in conservation attitudes, especially biocentrism, in urban US children and adults. They also shed light on factors that can be manipulated (e.g., by communication specialists) to provoke conservation concern. Importantly, they clarify the role of words, functions, and feelings in shaping social and moral attitudes.