Does Beauty Matter? The Effect of Perceived Attractiveness on Children’s Moral Judgments of Harmful Actions against Animals

The current research asks whether children’s judgments of harmful actions toward animals depend on animals’ perceived attractiveness. In Study 1, primary school children (N = 359) rated the perceived attractiveness of six animals and judged how severe it is to hurt them, as compared to moral transgressions, social-conventional transgressions, and personal choices. Hurting attractive animals was perceived as severe as hurting another child, while hurting unattractive animals was evaluated as less serious than social-conventional transgressions. In Study 2, we experimentally tested whether the attractiveness of animals rated as unattractive in Study 1 could be influenced by an environmental education intervention. After the intervention, children in the experimental group (N = 21) rated unattractive animals as more attractive than before the intervention, and this led to judging harming these animals more severely than before the intervention. No changes were found in the control group (N = 20).