The Peculiarities of Human Behavior
Our Favorite Animals and a Zoologist’s Hypotheses.
A few weeks ago I found myself reading The Naked Ape, a book by the English zoologist Desmond Morris. It dissects the human animal into very intricate and intriguing perspectives. Of the many interesting hypotheses Morris made in his book, there was one that particularly caught my eye, and I decided to have some fun testing it.
Human beings are dubbed an ‘intelligent’ species — depending on your definition of intelligence. With such intelligence comes a slew of interesting behaviors, such as what animals we like and dislike most (for whatsoever reason). What is your favorite and/or least favorite animal? Why? Desmond Morris hypothesizes that the choice of animal is an unconscious process. He claims there are subtle, hidden pressures working on us all the time that force us to see other species as caricatures of ourselves.
To support his position, Morris carried out an investigation involving eighty thousand British children between the ages of four and fourteen by asking them ‘which animal do you like most?’. He generated a ‘top ten animal loves’ list with the Chimpanzee, at 13.5 per cent, being first. The other animals included: Monkey (13 per cent), Horse (9 per cent), Bushbaby (8 per cent), Panda (7.5 per cent), Bear (7 per cent), Elephant (6 per cent), Lion (5 per cent), Dog (4 per cent) and Giraffe (2.5 per cent).
He further generated data on the most ‘hated’ animals and his ‘top ten most disliked animals’ included: Snake (27 per cent), Spider (9.5 per cent), Crocodile (4.5 per cent), Lion (4.5 per cent), Rat (4 per cent), Skunk (3 per cent), Gorilla (3 per cent), Rhinoceros (3 per cent), Hippopotamus (2.5 per cent) and Tiger (2.5 per cent). He explains that the one feature they share in common is that they are dangerous.
From his results, Morris drew two principles:
- The popularity of an animal is directly correlated with the number of anthropomorphic (human-like) features it possess.
- The age of a child is inversely correlated with the size of the animal it most prefers.
The second principle is further explained as ‘younger children will prefer bigger animals because their instinct is to be protected while older children will prefer smaller animals because their biological pressure is leaning on them exercising some sort of parenting’.
Even though I was very skeptical of his hypotheses, I was not surprised that the snake topped the list for the most hated organism. My objection was that Morris may not have considered other factors that may equally weigh in on the choices children made. He challenged that, irrespective of culture, the data would follow patterns based on his two principles. I opine that Morris is influenced by the Adaptationist school of thought, which I think was fairly criticized by biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin in their ‘The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm’ paper.
I, therefore, decided to generate my own little data to see if I would obtain similar trends. I interviewed a mere two hundred and forty children (largely Malawian) between the ages seven and sixteen. The results I obtained from this small sample, however, were quite interesting.
Unlike Morris’ top ten list, I narrowed my analysis to the top five. Of the ten animals on his list, only two make an appearance on my list: the Dog (40.8 per cent) and the Lion (9.6 per cent). The Tiger and domestic Cat are tied in third place, both garnering a 4.6 per cent. Perhaps it is most surprising that the Snake (2.5 per cent), oddly tied with the Rabbit, makes it in the top five list of favorite animals — I might take the blame for the small sample population (despite the others supposedly paralleling Morris’ results).
On my top five list of least favorite animals, we see three organisms appearing in both Morris’ list and my list: the Snake (28.8 per cent), the Spider (4.2 per cent) and the Lion (4.2 per cent). I was a bit surprised to find that the domestic Cat (18 per cent) was the second least favorite. What biological force might be at play here? Another anomaly is the appearance of the Dog (3.3) on this list.
I decided to take my data a step further and look into trends in different age groups. Perhaps their cognitive developmental stages had an influence on the choices they made. I clustered the ages based on Jean Piaget’s theory on stages of cognitive development. My task was to see what differences would emerge from my two clusters and whether Morris’ second principle can be seen in these data. Would the younger cluster be laden with big animals? Of my two hundred and forty participants, one hundred and twenty-five were between seven and eleven years, and one hundred and fifteen were between twelve and sixteen years.
On the top five list of favorite animals for ages seven to eleven, the Dog stole the show with a massive 48 per cent. The rest of the list is as follows: domestic Cat (8.8 per cent), Lion (8 per cent), Tiger (5.6 per cent) and Rabbit (4.8 per cent). If I am being fair, only the lion and the tiger fit Morris’ second principle. Perhaps my sampled children were not young enough to fit his second principle.
The top five list of least favorite animals, however, makes me feel like Desmond Morris was onto something. Save for the domestic Cat (16.8 per cent) and the Dog (2.4 per cent) — which ties with both the Crocodile and the Spider — the rest of the organisms on my list make an appearance on Morris’ ‘hated animals’ list as well. As I expected, the Snake tops the chart with a 37.6 per cent. The Lion (8 per cent) finds itself in third place while the Rat (3.2 per cent) in fourth. Morris’ rationale for the rat is that it is a pest that spreads disease.
The second set of data came from the one hundred and fifteen children aged twelve and up. I looked forward to how this group would parallel the seven to eleven group, and what that would mean.
Interestingly, the Dog (38 per cent) still outshined the other organisms in the top five list of favorite animals. Its prominence in this group might perhaps correlate Morris’ second principle, but the principle falls short in accounting for the presence of the second-placed Lion (11 per cent), the fourth-placed Tiger (3.5 per cent) or the equally fourth-placed Dolphin (3.5 per cent). It is this category that sees the anomalous third-placed Snake (5.2 per cent) appearing on the list.
In an unexpected turn of events, the domestic Cat (20 per cent) is first among the top five list of least favorite animals, with the Snake (19 per cent) coming in a close second. The Spider (6.1 per cent), and Dog (4.3) find themselves on the list again, in third and fifth place respectively.
So, what can we possibly make of some of the anomalous results obtained in my small data? Why was the cat so prominent on the ‘least favorite animals’ list? Why were large animals prominent in both age groups? What does the intense hate for snakes say about us?
I think Desmond Morris was onto something when he theorized these concepts. Can there, however, be more to it than his two principles? Consider, for example, the role that the remembering self might exert on our choice of animal. What response would one expect from a child who had a bad experience with a murder of crows? Or a bunch of bullies in school? (Some children chose humans as their least favorite animal). Sure, these would be statistical outliers, but what about the prominence of some organisms than others in mainstream media and/or everyday life? What influence would the portrayal of animals in movies like The Lion King, or Rango, have on children’s choices? What about the kinds of animals children see hanging in their homes or art classes? Can we disregard what they are being taught about particular animals? I think not.
Sure, some biologists may attribute out intense dislike of snakes to our survival instincts. But how can one explain the intense dislike of the domestic cats in my small study? Is the cat lacking in anthropomorphic features, as opposed to other felines? Or is the cat more dangerous than the bigger felines? In the culture I am from, the cat is usually associated with witchcraft. It is considered an evil animal. This could be a plausible explanation for the intense dislike. If, therefore, we can attribute the dislike of cats to cultural superstitions, can we boldly proclaim that the others are entirely free from cultural forces? Perhaps next time I shall ask the children to offer reasons for their choices.
I cannot possibly draw solid conclusions from my small sample, I can merely opine that human behavior is multifaceted. Regardless, I invite you try out this fun activity and see what patterns you can generate from your data.
