The Effect of Animal Bipedal Posture on Perceived Cuteness, Fear, and Willingness to Protect Them

Human–animal relationships have long been the subject of controversy because they are shaped by several cultural, inter-individual, and evolutionary factors. Understanding these relationships, however, is important to optimize conservation efforts. There agreement that perceived similarity between animals humans associated with more positive attitudes. The human–animal could be caused phylogenetic closeness. We hypothesized bipedal posture an animal may as a cue phenotypic humans. examined this topic comparing cuteness, fear, willingness protect differing in body posture, size, closeness on sample N = 349 Slovak participants. found enhanced but effect was most pronounced small-bodied animals, particularly those direct eye contact. Phylogenetically close species (e.g., small mammals) received greater support than phylogenetically distant invertebrates). However, anthropomorphic-looking support, suggesting pictures closely resemble can used campaigns.