Does Believing That Humans are Part of Nature Matter for Children’s Environmentalist Attitudes?

• In Event: Scientific Folk Theories

Abstract

It has been argued that conceiving of humans as separate from nature is at the root of the environmental crisis (Plumwood, 1993). Indeed, adults who conceive of humans as separate, exceptional, and superior to other living things show decreased concern about climate change (Betz & Coley, 2022). However, there is scarce research examining whether children conceive of humans as part of nature; what factors contribute to developing a human-inclusive concept of nature; or the implications of a human-inclusive concept of nature for conservation attitudes.
In Study 1, we conducted several tasks with 6-year-old children (N=68, M age=6.49 years, SD=0.5) to explore these questions. To measure their concept of nature, children were first asked to spontaneously generate a list of “things that are part of nature” and then sort 10 cards depicting artifacts and natural entities (including humans) into two boxes labeled “part of nature” or “not part of nature.” To explore their reasoning about environmentally-damaging acts, children then rated the moral wrongness of four environmental harm scenarios (0-3) and justified their judgements. Justifications were coded for the level of Earth-centred “ecocentric”—rather than human-centred—reasoning (0-4). In a further two trials, children chose between an ecocentric versus a human-centred reason for donating money to one of two conservation causes (0-2). Additionally, participants completed a measure of their ecological sensitivities (0-4) and watched one of three randomly assigned videos about the Earth: one describing the Earth as an object, one describing the Earth as a biological agent, and one describing it as a psychological being.
Results revealed that very few children conceived of humans as part of nature (10% spontaneously and 34% in the sorting-cards task). However, a human-inclusive concept of nature was greater among children who were induced to attribute a mind to the Earth by the video (p = .01). Importantly, our results showed that having a human-inclusive concept of nature matters for conservation attitudes albeit not in isolation. Specifically, children with both a human-inclusive concept of nature and stronger ecological reasoning tendencies showed greater environmental moral concern (p = .02, Figure 1). We also found that ecological reasoning tendencies related to greater ecocentric donation choices and that ecocentric moral judgement justifications were related to greater environmental moral concern (ps < .05).
These findings suggest that psychological attributions to natural phenomena promote human-inclusive conceptions of nature and that, in turn, a human-inclusive concept of nature—plus sensitivities to ecological interconnectedness that also promote ecocentrism—might be fundamental to promoting environmental concern in young children. Given indications that possessing a human-inclusive concept of nature matters for environmental concern, research is currently exploring other factors that might promote human-inclusive nature concepts. For example, preliminary results from follow-up research (Study 2) suggest that accepting that humans share common ancestry with other living things is relevant (p=0.03, Figure 2). We will discuss the implications of these and other findings for understanding environmental moral reasoning and enhancing the design of environmental justice curricula.

Authors

• Lizette Pizza, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Deb Kelemen, Boston University