Connectedness to nature affects children’s understanding and interpretation of environmentally harmful behaviorsPrevious research indicates that both anthropocentrism – which prioritizes human interests – and ecocentrism – which values nature for its own sake – can motivate children to care for the environment. What’s not known, however, is the extent to which children’s judgements about environmentally harmful behaviors are influenced by victim type. Does it make a difference, for example, if the victim is human, animal, plant, or some unspecified other, such as "the earth" or "the environment"? This study addressed this question. It also explored the possible impact of connectedness to nature (CN) on children’s moral judgement regarding environmentally harmful behaviors.
This study was conducted in various regions of the Republic of Korea, with 185 five-year-old Korean children and their mothers participating. The children were randomly assigned to one of five groups. Four groups were exposed to scenarios on a laptop of an environmentally harmful behavior impacting either a human, an animal, a plant, or an “unspecified other.” They were then asked to indicate whether they felt the harmful behavior was “okay” or “not okay.” If “not okay” was selected, the child was asked to decide if the action was “slightly bad.” “very bad,” or “extremely bad.” The children were then asked, “Why do you think so?” The children’s responses were categorized as being anthropocentric, ecocentric, or non-environmental (lacking clear environmental reasoning). The mothers participated in the study by responding to a survey assessing their children’s connectedness to nature (CN) and engagement in pro-environmental activities. The CN items were adapted from the Children’s Connectedness to Nature scale (Sobko et al., 2018).
Children’s moral judgments and reasoning regarding environmentally harmful behaviors varied according to the victim types. When considering children’s moral judgements (how bad?), results show that children judge environmentally harmful behavior most serious when the victim is human or unspecified. However, children’s level of CN did not influence their moral judgements of environmentally harmful behaviors based on victim type. When children judged environmentally harmful behaviors as particularly bad, and were asked for their reasoning (why?), videos showing environmentally harmful behaviors toward non-human beings, such as animals and plants, increased children’s probability of presenting ecocentric reasoning. Moreover, the higher the children’s CN the more likely they were to offer ecocentric reasoning compared to the control group. In contrast, children tended to offer anthropocentric reasoning when the victim was human. With regard to the influence of CN, for human victims, the higher the CN, the less likely the children were to offer anthropocentric explanations compared to the control group; the lower the CN, the more likely they were to provide such anthropocentric reasoning. Finally, children judged environmentally harmful behaviors as more serious when they presented ecocentric reasons.
These results illustrate how environmental reasoning – especially ecocentric reasoning – impacts children’s moral judgments of environmentally harmful behaviors. Children judge environmentally harmful behaviors more severely when based on ecocentric reasoning. The results also indicate that CN affects children’s understanding and interpretation of environmentally harmful behaviors. This research supports a positive relationship between CN and pro-environmental behaviors and “highlights CN’s importance in encouraging ecocentric perspectives among children.”
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