Lecture 4: Perception Biodiversity Flashcards
Biophilia- what is it?
Concept popularised by Wilson (1984), who suggested that humans recognise and have empathy with other forms of life
• This empathy means that we are predisposed to taking an interest in and caring for other species at some fundamental biological level
though there is much environmental conditioning and psychology behind this, e.g. charisma and evolutionary distance
More on biophilia
This may be one reason why both physical and mental health have been linked to contact with nature and other organisms, ranging from visits to parks and wildlife areas to the benefits of domestic pets
• For example, studies monitoring recovery of patients for one year following major heart surgery demonstrated that people with pets had greater survival and recovery rates
• This also differed with species – people owning dogs were over 8 times more likely to survive than those with cats
Plants biophilia
Plants have been grown indoors for millennia (e.g. Egyptians, 3rd C BC), and this is common today in home, work, public places, shopping malls etc
• There is evidence that the presence of plants helps with pain relief – people can take more pain when they can view plants, and hospital patients with windows that overlook vegetation tend to recover faster
• Plants are mainly used for stress relief, along with other forms of nature exposure (running water, forest sounds, birdcalls etc.), which presumably speaks to some primal element of our psychology

Aesthetic appearance and cultural attitudes
Aesthetic appearance and cultural attitudes also influence how we treat species,
which influences biological conservation and the decisions that are made – practical conservation ultimately depends on public support of management actions and policies
E.g. use of pleasing/symbolic species by organisations to encourage support:
Influence of affect
There is also the influence of ‘affect’ (emotion/feeling) in perceptions of species, which differs from ‘cognitive’ (reasoning) processes
• As an example, an affective preference for a species may be influenced by cognitive reasoning – a harmful or unpleasant species may still be important and we acknowledge this
• Nevertheless, we can still like something or be afraid of it before we know what it is, or even knowing what it is
Dominionistic
humans have control over nature, or that we are naturally dominant
Moralistic
humans have a spiritual or ethical reverence of nature, and by inference an obligation to protect it
Naturalistic
usually held by people who have direct experience of nature, e.g. via recreation
Anthropocentric/ecocentric
use of species and nature for direct and indirect human benefits vs. the right of nature and species to exist
Wolves in yellowstone
For example, attitudes towards the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the US varied between environmentalists, who held moralistic and ecocentric views of wolves and nature (that wolves have a ‘right’ to be there and improve the ‘social good’)
while many opponents regarded the wolves as ‘wild’ and a threat to the established rancher culture (dominionistic/anthropocentric views)
• This seems to be common for most large carnivores – those people with anthropocentric views tend to oppose their presence, while those with ecocentric views support reintroduction or conservation, though this also relates to vested interests
People who engage in nature
Likewise, people who engage with nature on a regular basis tend to be more knowledgeable about it, and are more likely to support preservation and restoration of species and ecosystems
• These attitudes also feed into things like land use – for example, environmentalists tend to support more social ownership/control of land as reserves
• It has also been found that, for example, females have greater concern for environmental issues, support for species protection, and have greater fear of ‘wild’ animals
Knight 2008
conducted a survey based on perceptions of endangered species, and asked participants to rank their aesthetic appeal, level of fear/safety, and conservation support for each species:
• Aesthetically pleasing species were harp seal pup, pygmy rabbit and cougar cubs, less pleasing were two-striped garter snake, ozark big-eared bat and dolloff cave spider
The most fearful species were the dolloff cave spider, red wolf and adult cougar, while the safest species were the pygmy rabbit, laysan duck and harp seal pup
Emotional response
This indicates that relatively instinctive emotional responses may influence perceptions and therefore decision-making, with implications for biodiversity assessment and conservation
There may be a tendency to favour birds, mammals and fish as these have been more positively ‘socially constructed’ than e.g. invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians
this may simply relate to the fact that birds, mammals and fish are more directly useful to us as a resource, and we have a history of exploitation of these species that has focused our interest
• Indirectly, many of the more useful taxa are those that are not well recorded (e.g. bacteria, nematodes), and these are also under-recorded because the interest and expertise is not there to document them

Snakes
Poisonous snakes cause sickness and death in primates around the world.
Humans are generally averse to snakes, and quickly develop fear and phobias with little negative reinforcement – same also for dogs, spiders, closed spaces, running water and heights. Much less common for guns, knives, cars, electric wires
Perceptions on wilderness
Tends to be an association of ‘nature’ with ‘wilderness’, mainly because of a romanticism of wild places and animals as a response to the alienation of the ‘city’, as the world became more urbanised
• This has led to the creation of ‘wilderness’ landscapes in cities, though of course the concept and application of ‘wilderness’ is socially constructed and not very objective at all
• There are variations in perception of landscapes, with people preferring different aspects
