Efficacy of Emotive Animal Imagery for Animal Aid and Conservation

Gaylord National 

To gain a better understanding of how animal-based charities can motivate young adults to take action on behalf of animals, we conducted an experiment examining how animal imagery affects participants' intentions to donate, volunteer, and take political action on behalf of pictured animals. Participants were shown images of different animal species (dogs, cats, manatees, koalas, and black-footed ferrets) exhibiting different emotive states (happy, sad, afraid or hurt, and nurturing) and then asked about their intentions to donate, volunteer, and take political action (e.g. sign petitions, write legislators, etc.) on behalf of the pictured animals.
In our study, participants were significantly more likely to express intention to act on behalf of animals when shown images of afraid or hurt animals rather than other emotive state images. Thus, we found that selection of specific emotive state depiction was important for generating intent to act on behalf of animals. We also determined that participants were most likely to act when shown images of dogs and were least likely to act when shown images of black-footed ferrets. Type of animal depicted, whether specific species or domestic/wild, did affect participant intentions. Likewise, we found that participant demographic characteristics, such as hometown area classification, affected participant intentions. These findings will help move animal aid and conservation efforts forward by providing empirically tested evidence for generating animal aid and conservation intentions through message construction and audience targeting.