Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 30;18(7):3565. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18073565.
The global illegal wildlife trade directly threatens biodiversity and leads to disease outbreaks and epidemics. In order to avoid the loss of endangered species and ensure public health security, it is necessary to intervene in illegal wildlife trade and promote public awareness of the need for wildlife conservation. Anthropomorphism is a basic and common psychological process in humans that plays a crucial role in determining how a person interacts with other non-human agents. Previous research indicates that anthropomorphizing nature entities through metaphors could increase individual behavioral intention of wildlife conservation. However, relatively little is known about the mechanism by which anthropomorphism influences behavioral intention and whether social context affects the effect of anthropomorphism. This research investigated the impact of negative emotions associated with a pandemic situation on the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies for wildlife conservation across two experimental studies. Experiment 1 recruited 245 college students online and asked them to read a combination of texts and pictures as anthropomorphic materials. The results indicated that anthropomorphic materials could increase participants' empathy and decrease their wildlife product consumption intention. Experiment 2 recruited 140 college students online and they were required to read the same materials as experiment 1 after watching a video related to epidemics. The results showed that the effect of wildlife anthropomorphization vanished if participants' negative emotion was aroused by the video. The present research provides experimental evidence that anthropomorphic strategies would be useful for boosting public support for wildlife conservation. However, policymakers and conservation organizations must be careful about the negative effects of the pandemic context, as the negative emotions produced by it seems to weaken the effectiveness of anthropomorphic strategies.
全球非法野生动物贸易直接威胁生物多样性，并导致疾病爆发和流行。为了避免濒危物种的丧失，确保公共卫生安全，有必要干预非法野生动物贸易，提高公众对野生动物保护必要性的认识。拟人化是人类基本且常见的心理过程，在决定一个人与其他非人类主体的互动方式方面起着关键作用。先前的研究表明，通过隐喻将自然实体拟人化可以提高个人保护野生动物的行为意愿。然而，人们对拟人化如何影响行为意愿以及社会环境是否会影响拟人化的效果知之甚少。本研究通过两项实验研究，调查了与大流行情况相关的负面情绪对野生动物保护拟人化策略有效性的影响。实验 1 在网上招募了 245 名大学生，要求他们阅读文本和图片组合作为拟人化材料。结果表明，拟人化材料可以增加参与者的同理心，减少他们对野生动物产品的消费意愿。实验 2 在网上招募了 140 名大学生，他们在观看与流行病相关的视频后阅读了与实验 1 相同的材料。结果表明，如果视频引起参与者的负面情绪，野生动物拟人化的效果就会消失。本研究提供了实验证据，表明拟人化策略对于增强公众对野生动物保护的支持将是有用的。然而，政策制定者和保护组织必须小心大流行背景的负面影响，因为它产生的负面情绪似乎会削弱拟人化策略的有效性。
