Young children focus more on pets than on inanimate objects: Experimental evidence for the innate nature of biophilia.

Abstract

The human-Nature relationship is a valuable resource through which children can mature, evolve, investigate their subjectivity, and get in touch with their own emotions and subsequently with those of other living beings, ultimately leading them to pay attention to the preservation and protection of ecosystems. With this experimental study, we aimed to investigate the biophilia hypothesis in preschool children. We proceeded with a protocol where children (0-2 years and 3-5 years) played freely for 5-10 minutes. Then, without warning, a single novel stimulus was introduced: a pet, a remote-controlled car, a plant, or a painting. We recorded their reaction time to become aware of (to shift their attention to) the presence of the new stimulus. The objective of the experimental observations was to verify differences in the latency to fascination (bottom-up attention) when the children encountered living (pets and plants) and non-living (moving and stationary objects) entities. We hypothesize that pets will shift children's attention more quickly and more frequently than non-living objects. Furthermore, among non-living objects, moving ones will shift attention more than stationary ones. We are therefore operating within E.O. Wilson's prediction that biophilia is “our innate tendency to focus on life and life-like forms and, in some cases, to associate emotionally with them”. Considering the age of the young participants, this is most likely an innate behaviour that reinforces the idea that biophilia is an evolutionary adaptation.