Charismatic species should be large: the role of admiration and fear

Humans show strong preferences for large, ʺcharismaticʺ animals. However, the ultimate reasons for these innate preferences remain unclear. In our research, we investigate the affective components of human attitudes toward animals, as well as the willingness to pay (WTP) for their conservation in a sample of N = 549 Slovak people using an online questionnaire.

From the use of structural equation modelling, we discovered that particularly large animals trigger both biophobic (fear) and biophilic (admiration) emotions in humans, and as a result, these emotions have contrasting effects on the WTP for animal conservation. Both fear and admiration of animals were influenced by the same emotions triggered by non-animal objects. Beliefs in the magical power of animals did not directly influence the WTP animal conservation, but was mediated by the admiration of large, non-animal objects. Females showed greater WTP for animal conservation than males, irrespective of the size of the species. 

Therefore, we believe that biophobic responses from large animals and non-animal objects in contemporary humans were inherited from our mammalian ancestors, who were targets of predation by large prehistoric reptiles throughout a significant part of mammalian evolutionary history.

人类对体型庞大、极具魅力（charismatic）的动物表现出强烈偏好，然而这类先天偏好的根本成因仍未明确。本研究以549名斯洛伐克民众为研究样本，通过线上问卷调研，探讨了人类对动物态度中的情感成分，以及民众为动物保护支付的意愿（Willingness to Pay, WTP）。

通过结构方程模型（Structural Equation Modelling）分析，本研究发现，大型动物尤其容易触发人类的恐生（biophobic）情绪与亲生（biophilic）情绪，而这两类情绪会对动物保护支付意愿产生相反的影响。人类对动物的恐惧与喜爱，均会受到非动物客体所触发的同类情绪的影响。民众对动物超自然力量的信念，并未直接影响其动物保护支付意愿，而是通过对大型非动物客体的喜爱这一中介路径发挥作用。此外，无论动物体型大小，女性的动物保护支付意愿均显著高于男性。

据此我们认为，当代人类对大型动物与非动物客体的恐生反应，继承自我们的哺乳类祖先——在哺乳动物演化史的大部分时期，这类祖先曾是大型史前爬行动物的捕食目标。