學齡前幼兒對哺乳動物外表特徵偏好之研究

生物學家E.O. Wilson與其他一些當代學者認為，人與其他物種間長期的互動，已使人類對其他生物的情感成為人類演化遺傳的一部份。如果人對其他物種的情感已為演化產物，能否反映在人類對動物外表特徵有所特定偏好？若是，則偏好的特質為何，又如何從演化生物學的觀點來解釋？故，本研究選擇仍依賴直覺表現行為的3~5歲幼兒為對象，測定他們對動物的外表特徵之偏好傾向。方法上，本研究以問卷方式一對一進行，總共完成2,573份有效問卷，男女比例約為1:1。問卷分成兩部份：第一部分主要是了解受測幼兒對動物的情感取向，結果發現分別有94%、75%、78% 的受測幼兒對動物、寵物、與動物園抱持著正向情感，且喜歡的動物多為陸生哺乳動物；第二部份目的是找出幼兒對動物外表特徵之偏好傾向，每位受試者對擬哺乳動物的圖片兩兩比較，依直覺做出偏好選擇。所得資料主要以Bradley-Terry model作分析，依幼兒喜愛的程度將各式圖片排序。結果發現幼兒對擬哺乳動物特定的外表特徵有偏好傾向。整體而言，眼睛比例較大的臉孔、較大的體型、較簡單的顏色、較短的毛、與典型的體輪廓為較受幼童喜好的動物外表特徵。另外，研究結果也發現性別間有些陵t異，男孩喜愛的特徵較女孩多元，且男孩也比女孩顯著喜愛較大的體型特徵。就演化觀點而言，對這些外表特徵之偏好，可能為人類與其他哺乳動物間長久互動下所形成的印記，也可能反映的是人類對幼兒特徵之偏好或是穩定化選擇的結果。至於性別間的差異，則可能為從獵人搜集者時代就開始的性別角色使得男性逐漸演化出較多元的偏好傾向，而性擇中雄性競爭態選壓力可能促使男孩對武力象徵的體型大小特徵演化出偏好傾向，使得兩性對動物外表特徵的偏好有些陬{度上的差異。

關鍵字

幼兒與動物；外表特徵；偏好；演化；親生物性假說；性別差異；兩兩比較

並列摘要

Some contemporary scholars, pioneered by biologist E. O. Wilson, believe human’s feelings toward nature and other living forms are partially innate in a result of long human-animal interaction in the course of evolution. Following their ideas up, the study had two purposes: first, to investigate if the human innate feelings towards other species could reflect on the preferences of animal’s certain morphological features. Second, to explore possible reasons in the evolutionary aspects if the first question was positively answered. The study was conducted on 3-5-year old children who still heavily rely on intuition. 2,573 valid questionnaires in total were completed one on one with subjects. The sex ratio was about 1:1. Each questionnaire included two parts: the first part was primarily to understand the general emotional tendency that sampled children held toward animals, and the findings were that 94%, 75%, and 78% of children possessed positive feelings toward animal, pet, and zoo respectively, and terrestrial mammals were the major object in their mind. The second part was designed for investigating children’s preferences for animal morphological features. Every child intuitively made preference choices of paired designed mammal figures. The ranking of animal stimuli was analyzed by the Bradley-Terry model. The results modestly showed that children had preferences for certain animal morphological features. Overall, features as typical face, larger size, simpler color, shorter fur, and typical shape were preferred. Some differences in gender were also found in that male children tended to have wider preferences for animal features and showed stronger bias for larger size. In conclusion, the long term human-mammal interaction could be one explanation for the features preferred. The projection of human bias for childish traits or loving for the averageness onto animal morphological features could also partially explain the results. About the gender differences, the long term effect of the sex roles since the hunter-gatherer period might induce males to gradually evolve the larger preference capacity, and the intra-sexual competition among men probably cause male children to evolve stronger preference for larger size that symbolizes as weaponary.

並列關鍵字

children and animal ； feature ； preference ； evolution ； biophilia hypothesis ； gender differences ； pair comparison

參考文獻

Acuff, D.S. and Reiher, R.H. (1998). What kids buy and why: the psychology of marketing to kids. (J. Wang, Trans.). Taipei, Taiwan: Business Weekly Publications, Inc. (Original work published 1997)

Agresti, A. (1996). An introduction to categorical data analysis. New York and Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Alcock, J. (1997). Animal Behavior: an evolutionary approach. 6th ed. Massachusetts, U.S.A.: Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Balmford, A. (2000). Separating fact from artifact in analyses of zoo visitor preferences. Conservation Biology, 14 (4), pp. 1193-1195.

Barber, N. (1995). The evolutionary psychology of physical attractiveness: sexual selection and human morphology. Ethology and Sociobiology, 16, pp. 395-424.

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學齡前幼兒對哺乳動物外表特徵偏好之研究

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