Amici Federica, Gomez-Melara Jose Luis, Majolo Bonaventura, Acosta-Naranjo Rufino, Izar Patrícia, Maulany Risma Illa, Ngakan Putu Oka, Mohd Sah Shahrul Anuar, Liebal Katja
Human Biology & Primate Cognition Group, Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
iScience. 2025 Jun 18;28(7):112693. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112693. eCollection 2025 Jul 18.
Conservation efforts are largely dependent on the amount of public concern for wildlife protection. One of the factors that best predict willingness to support conservation projects is anthropomorphism. Here, we administered questionnaires to a cross-cultural sample ( = 741), including adult participants from Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, and Spain, to investigate the drivers of inter-individual variation in anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism increased when participants had more "urban" experience with animals, lower social integration, higher allocentric tendencies, and lower formal education. Participants with higher exposure to monkeys were also less likely to attribute them the ability to feel pain, while considering them accountable for their actions. Religions emphasizing human similarity and inter-connection of all living beings predicted higher anthropomorphism, with the specific taxa and traits considered modulating these effects. Overall, this work contributes to better understanding the factors that explain variation in anthropomorphism and that might promote interest in other species and foster conservation efforts.
保护工作在很大程度上取决于公众对野生动物保护的关注程度。最能预测支持保护项目意愿的因素之一是拟人化。在此，我们对一个跨文化样本（n = 741）进行了问卷调查，样本包括来自巴西、印度尼西亚、马来西亚、墨西哥和西班牙的成年参与者，以调查拟人化个体间差异的驱动因素。当参与者有更多与动物的“城市”接触经历、较低的社会融入度、较高的异我中心倾向和较低的正规教育程度时，拟人化程度会增加。接触猴子较多的参与者也不太可能认为猴子有感受疼痛的能力，同时认为它们应对自己的行为负责。强调人类相似性和所有生物相互联系的宗教预示着更高的拟人化程度，所考虑的特定分类群和特征会调节这些影响。总体而言，这项工作有助于更好地理解解释拟人化差异的因素，这些因素可能会促进对其他物种的兴趣并推动保护工作。
