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WHAT do children of different ages know about living things, and what
are their attitudes towards the natural world? How do their feelings and
understanding change as they mature? In 1986 I completed an initial investigation
of some 1200 children of secondary-school age from the southeast of England.
Since then, two background studies have been published by the Humane Society
of the United States, followed by extensive reviews by the American Fish
and Wildlife Service, running from 1982 onwards. Each of these highlighted
the different attitudes of maturing children towards animals, as well as
providing interesting data on their general relationships with the natural
world. Building on this work, the BBC Special Projects Department recently
completed a nationwide survey in Britain that relied on advanced statistical
methods to ensure better sampling.

Unfortunately, it is not always clear how far results from these surveys
are comparable, because their methodology is not always described in sufficient
detail. But all the researchers agree that younger children have a predilection
for lovable cuddly animals, particularly domestic pets. We can compare findings
on ‘animal popularity’ from three main surveys, remembering that the choice
of species offered in each case varied somewhat (see Table).

The dolphin’s position in the BBC survey is rather surprising, and is
probably due to the popularity of the TV star Flipper whose series was being
broadcast in Britain at the time. Indeed, this may be why the dolphin was
included in the first place. It did not appear in other surveys, although
its relative the whale was ranked 14/33 in the American list. Younger children
favoured larger, cuddly animals, but in both British surveys they also tended
to react more favourably to all animals than did American children of a
similar age. In this respect the British children seemed to be more sensitive
at an earlier age than their American counterparts. The American Fish and
Wildlife Survey found that the younger group of American children (6 to
10 years) tended to be ‘exploitative, harsh and unfeeling’ in their attitudes.
They seemed to lack the emotional identification and empathy with animals
that had evolved in the next age group (10 to 14 years). Above that age,
the survey found that young people’s ‘ethical concern for the welfare of
and treatment of animals increased dramatically’.

The American research concluded that there are three stages in children’s
development: exploitative, emotional and ethical. The researchers suggest
that educationalists should bear these stages in mind when designing suitable
programmes and educational curricula for American schoolchildren. Such programmes
should be fashioned to make pupils, in turn, affective rather than exploitative
in their approach, then factual rather than emotional, and finally ‘ethico-conservationist’,
building on their developing sense of moral issues in relation to the environment.
The British results seem to indicate that British children develop an emotional
involvement and sensitivity to animals earlier than do American children.
It is not clear why this should be so. Perhaps British children are exposed
to more anthropomorphic literature and television programmes although many
of the popular TV series such as Flipper and Lassie were produced in the
US. But my survey and the one by the BBC found a similar series of ‘stages’
in British children, culminating by the age of 15 in an ‘ethical appreciation
of animals and the environment’.

The dog ranked as a firm favourite among boys right through the age-groups
in all three surveys. It never fell below second in my survey, was the most
consistent first choice in recent American lists, and ranked next to the
dolphin in the BBC survey. The dog was third choice for girls aged from
9 to 11, but gave way to the horse for most of the older girls in my survey.

The rabbit featured highly in both British surveys but none of the studies
seems to have distinguished between the pet and the wild variety. This is
a pity, because most groups listed at least two recognisably ‘wild’ animals
as being highly favoured, younger boys opting for the panda, while girls
were torn between the panda and the chimpanzee. These results are broadly
consistent with other surveys, such as one conducted in 1960 by Desmond
Morris, based on a television series about zoo animals. It showed that ‘the
top 10 animal loves all have humanoid features’ – in that they are mammals,
with large eyes, rounded faces and cuddly bodies.

All studies found a general trend for younger children to favour larger
animals – some tentatively suggesting that these are regarded as parent
substitutes – whereas older children tended to favour smaller animals, which
were supposedly seen as child substitutes.

The rat was clearly the most disliked mammal, and the spider was generally
the most widely disliked animal. However, the American survey did not mention
spiders: their place in the unpopularity stakes was taken by the cockroach.

The animals that childen disliked most were either dangerous or thought
to be so. But these feelings seemed not to be based on any sort of objective
judgment: for instance, the fox was not unpopular in the BBC survey, but
the wolf was. Stories and cartoons appear to be at the root of the tradition:
the fox is ‘clever’, whereas the wolf continues to be portrayed as cruel
and voracious, as in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, or as an evil character
who huffs and puffs at Little Pigs’ houses. It seems to be the storybook
wolf, eternally chasing children through dark dim fairy-tale forests, that
forever influences their feelings towards this much-maligned animal.

For the most part, unpopular animals lacked anthropomorphic features.
Children described them to me in negative, emotional terms such as ‘slimy’
(snakes) or ‘hairy and dirty’ (spiders). Similarly, the rat is an animal
consistently associated with danger, dirt and disease. Nonetheless, although
it was the most unpopular animal, it still evoked strong feelings of compassion
when children thought about it as a subject for school dissections.

In another American survey in 1976, G. Boyle of the National Association
for the Advancement of Humane Education showed that more than three-quarters
of American children thought of pets as companions. Nine out of 10 children
considered them as family members, those with pets being more animal-orientated
and ranking pets higher than other animals as love-objects. Both my survey
and the BBC’s found that a very large proportion of British children (more
than 90 per cent) kept or had kept pets at home. This may well have influenced
their general attitude to animals and may be a factor, along with much of
young children’s literature, in encouraging them to attribute human thoughts
and feelings to animals. What young child, brought up on a diet of anthropomorphic
stories and attitudes, does not sometimes hold ‘conversations’ with the
family dog or cat?

The BBC survey suggested that British children of both sexes and all
ages are predominantly anthropomorphic in their attitudes. They prefer pet
animals to wild ones, think that wild animals get lonely in the wild, and
believe that all animals should be loved. My survey found, however, that
anthropomorphic concepts began to disappear at an earlier age, at least
from the age of nine. Thus, half of the nine-year-old children thought that
animals could tell each other stories, so attributing to them a fairly advanced
use of language, but only 16 per cent of children of this age thought that
animals knew their own birthdays. Only 4 per cent thought that they could
tell the time from a clock. Similarly, although half of the 10-year-old
boys thought that cats and dogs understood most of what they saw on television,
this figure fell to less than 10 per cent by the age of 14.

The BBC survey also indicated that, by the time children reached the
age of 14 or 15, they were much less anthropomorphic and ‘sentimental’ in
their attitudes than were the under-nines. Teenagers were developing a more
objective approach, which took in the whole animal kingdom and resulted
in more positive attitudes to wildlife. The researchers found, too, that
children who lived in the country tended to be better disposed to wild animals
and less fearful of them than their city-dwelling peers. Fewer country children
than city children would want to stay near people if they went camping in
places where wild animals live, and fewer agreed that most wild animals
were dangerous to people. They were also less likely to condone hunting
wild animals for sport (9 per cent compared with 12 per cent), but had fewer
objections to hunting them for food than had the city children (40 per cent
compared with 26 per cent).

All three major surveys found that, although boys tended to be more
knowledgeable about animals than girls, girls were generally more sensitive
than boys. There was one exception: I found that there was a strong correlation
between girls’ views on foxhunting and their social class. So although most
boys in both independent and state schools thought foxhunting cruel (82
per cent and 85 per cent respectively), teenage girls in state schools differed
markedly from their counterparts in independent schools in thinking foxhunting
to be cruel and unjustifiable (87 per cent compared with 63 per cent). This
is probably related to the passion among girls in social groups A, B and
C₁ for horse-riding and related activities such as pony clubs
and eventing.

As might be expected, the BBC survey looked for – and found – a clear
association between children’s exposure to wildlife programmes or books
and their positive attitudes towards animals. This relationship is probably
not so much causal as one of mutual reinforcement – children watch television
and read animal magazines because they are interested and so they become
more interested and watch more programmes about animals. Likewise, there
is a demonstrable, and probably similar, relationship between children’s
scores on knowledge tests about wild animals and the amount of time they
spend watching them on television or reading about them. The American survey
found comparable associations, although fewer wildlife programmes are broadcast
in the US than in Britain.

As might also be expected, the most knowledgeable children were older
(between 10 and 15 years), and they came from social grades A, B and C₁.
These children often lived in the country and regularly watched wildlife
programmes and read magazines about animals.

Between them, these surveys have established a baseline from which all
concerned can now work with confidence, whatever their involvement with
young people, animals or the environment. We must now take the next step
and attempt to find out what factors lie behind the transition that we see
in young children’s thinking as they move through the Peter Rabbit, Womble
and Watership Down stages, to an active concern for animals in particular,
and the environment in general. We also need to assess the associated development
of ethical principles in children, principles which ultimately govern our
relationships with other creatures and our attitudes towards them. Only
then can we really claim to set out to ‘promote a respect for all forms
of life’ in a meaningful way.

* * *

Who cares what children think about animals?

BIOLOGY teachers in Britain are explicitly charged ‘to promote a respect
for all forms of life’. This moral goal appears in the new GCSE syllabus
in Britain, as it did in the various earlier biology courses, such as the
Nuffield.

Until recently, however, there have been few attempts to assess what
young people really think about living things in the first place. The authors
of many educational programmes have made assumptions both about children’s
conceptual knowledge of the living world and their attitudes towards it.
But their conjectures lacked objectivity: they were not based on data relating
to children’s value-judgments or of their ability to grasp concepts about
animals or the environment. As a result, biologists have frequently attempted
to impart ideas that their pupils were not intellectually prepared to accept.
Worse, they have used teaching methods, such as dissection, when their pupils
were too young to cope with them, only to find that some refused to stomach
this technique because their sensibilities were offended. Consequently,
many teachers have tended to impart facts by rote, rather than seeking to
teach through understanding.

Not that teachers were the only people with problems. Animal welfare
organisations have wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds in producing ‘educational’
material and programmes which, with hindsight, were poorly targeted and
insufficiently researched. In particular, they often misjudged the extent
of children’s knowledge of animals, their level of interest, and their feelings
towards them. Consequently, many materials that cost a lot to produce were
rejected by teachers or – worse still – judged to be ‘boring’ by their pupils.
Even the better thought-out programmes were seldom assessed for their educational
worth, except sometimes in terms of the students’ ability to recall

various facts a short time later. No educationalist tried to assess
whether such programmes are effective, in the long term, at changing or
modifying students’ attitudes towards animals.

Everyone seemed to assume that an increase in knowledge was all that
was needed. Researchers believed that if children knew more about animals,
they would automatically have greater ’empathy’ for them and for the environment.

In any case, it would clearly have been illogical to attempt to assess
‘improvements’ in children’s attitudes, or their knowledge of animals after
exposure to these programmes, without first attempting to gather data on
where the children stood originally. Researchers would also have needed
to study matching groups as controls. All this helps to explain why researchers
in several countries have now tried to find out what children really think
about animals.

—————————————————————— LEAGUE
TABLE FOR ANIMALS ——————————————————————
Paterson US BBC Survey 1981-1986 1982
1988 ——————————————————————
MOST POPULAR ——————————————————————
Dog / Horse Dog Dolphin Cat Horse
Dog Panda / Chimpanzee Cat Cat / Rabbit ——————————————————————
LEAST POPULAR ——————————————————————
Crocodile Rat Wolf Rat Wasp / Mosquito
Spider Spider Cockroach Rat ——————————————————————

David Paterson is a former director of the British Veterinary Association’s
Animal Welfare Foundation.