The Relationship between Knowing and Liking for 91 Urban Animal Species among Students

SIMPLE SUMMARY: People in cities have varying opinions about the animals around them, but there is rather little knowledge on how attitudes towards different urban animals compare with each other and how that relates to how familiar they are with them. Using self-reporting questionnaires, we found that students thought themselves familiar with most animals, and that the animals were not equally liked. While the more familiar animals were not also the better liked ones, we did find that attitudes towards familiar animals were more extreme on both the positive and negative sides. We suggest that more research in which drivers of attitudes towards many different animals can be compared is needed to reduce conflict between animal and human urban inhabitants. ABSTRACT: While there is growing consensus that nature should be promoted in cities, it is less clear what kind of nature this should be. One hypothesis is that humans show greater liking for those parts of nature that they know better. Using questionnaires, we studied the familiarity of 475 students with 91 urban animal species and the relationship between familiarity and attitudes towards the species. Students declared that they were familiar with most animals, but not all animals were equally liked. Better-known species were not generally the better-liked ones. The more familiar animal species were the more extreme attitudes became towards them, both positively and negatively. Our research shows that familiarity and attitude are not two sides of the same coin. It also emphasizes that there are parts of nature that are not liked by many humans and that this dislike is not necessarily correlated with insufficient knowledge. Detailed studies of what components of nature humans like and reasons underlying this are necessary to successfully increase nature in cities.