This study aimed to verify the incidence of biocentric reasoning (centred on the
welfare of the animals) in 91 children, aged between 8 and 10, attending the 3rd and 4th years
in a primary school of Lisbon, Portugal, and is the continuity of another study promoted by
the authors. To do that, a questionnaire was applied, inquiring about the type of places where
the children contact with animals and their opinion about the human behaviour in three
different situations involving animals (dilemmas). The results have shown that the majority of
children had a small contact with natural and semi-natural places, and the majority only went
to places where nature is managed, like zoos and similar parks. This experience seems to be
responsible for inappropriate ideas about zoos, considered by some children the ideal place to
keep wild animals because there they are well treated and safer from predators. However, and
globally, the incidence of biocentric reasoning in the dilemmas is high, proving its increasing
in situations in which human action is considered selfish or inappropriate, but it also is
affected by the species presented (the empathy factor seems to be important as well).
Implications of these results for Science and Environmental Education are also discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
