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 attractiveness six and judged how severe it is to hurt them, as compared moral transgressions, social-conventional personal choices. Hurting attractive was hurting another child, while unattractive evaluated less serious than transgressions. 2, we experimentally tested in 1 could be influenced by an environmental education intervention. After intervention, experimental group 21) more before this led judging harming these severely No changes were found control 20).