Conservation education programs can influence children's attitudes about wildlife in areas where biodiversity is threatened. Anthropomorphism, defined as ascribing human characteristics to non-human species or objects, has been commonly used to teach children about animals. Research has shown that this approach can help students remember content long term by describing animals in terms to which children can relate. However, anthropomorphism has also been shown to cause children to think only from the human point of view (anthropocentric) and to describe other species in more anthropomorphic terms. This anthropocentric point of view has been shown to make it more difficult for children to empathize with animals and the environment, which leads to fewer pro-environmental behaviors. Previous studies have found that female students learn better through connecting to empathy and emotion, while male students are more likely to learn from interactive activities and non-emotional teaching. These differences may be important since conservation can depend on gender roles in certain contexts. The authors explored whether subtle anthropomorphism may be effective in teaching conservation to children, as well as how this varied by male and female participants.
The authors measured the effects of anthropomorphism on 170 school children, aged 8-13, who attended 5 schools in Garut Regency, West Java, Indonesia. Conservation of the Javan slow loris in Indonesia is affected by gender roles, as men are often hunters and women may work in areas inhabited by the slow loris. The authors created a storybook about the Javan slow loris with accurate facts and subtle anthropomorphism. Specifically, in the story, all biological aspects and animal activities remained accurate, but the animals could speak and express emotion. The authors visited each school and read the story to participants. To test whether the book resulted in an increased knowledge of the slow loris, participants wrote essays about the slow loris before and after reading the book, about 8-28 weeks apart. To analyze the data, they compared knowledge and the number of anthropomorphic references in the essays written before and after reading the book. In addition, they explored how the results varied between male and female participants.
The study found that subtle anthropomorphism was effectively taught participants about conservation ecology. Regardless of gender, the subtly anthropomorphized book increased knowledge. The authors found that references to loris ecology increased significantly in the essays after reading, and did not vary significantly between male and female participants.
The research also showed that anthropomorphic terms decreased in scope in the final essays and focused more narrowly on naming the loris, ecology, and conservation. Pre-storybook essays focused on actions, adjectives, and inaccurate anthropomorphized facts (for example, “slow lorises go to school every day”). The anthropomorphized sentences that students used in the final essay included accurate ecological information placed in an anthropomorphic phrase (for example, “slow lorises are happy in the forest”). Female participants more significantly reduced their negative anthropomorphizing usage in the final essay, such as only using anthropomorphic sentences to refer to factual information.
The study was limited in that it is unclear what the effects of the book would have been if it were about an animal that is not common locally. The results may vary with younger learners, who may have harder time differentiating real from imaginary. The results may vary with different participants in another location.
The authors recommend using similar approaches to incorporate subtle anthropomorphism when teaching children about conservation ecology. To minimize the negative effects anthropomorphism, the authors felt it was important that the animals in the book only taught ecology, rather than moral or emotional lessons.
The Bottom Line
<p>Anthropomorphism, or describing animals using human characteristics, has been frequently used to teach children about animals, but can reinforce a human-centric view of nature. The authors explored the impact of a book using subtle anthropomorphism (anthropomorphism only used to describe ecologically factual information) on 170 Indonesian children, aged 8-13. The authors collected essays about the slow loris from before and after reading a picture book about the animal. The researchers found that factual references to the ecology of the slow loris increased after children read the story. They recommend using subtle anthropomorphism to teach children about conservation ecology.</p>
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