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Abstract Eight hundred thirty West German adolescents aged 12, 15, and 18 years were given a questionnaire assessing their ethical and emotional concern about nature. Their consideration in dealing with nature and degree of sympathy with living things were high. On both scales, scores were highest for 12-year-olds, and higher for 15- and 18-year-old females than for their male age-mates. The same was true for scores measuring enjoyment of nature. But enjoyment of nature was altogether less than consideration for nature. Results were discussed in terms of females' stronger prosocial attitudes and children's and female adolescents' stronger emotional bonding with nonhuman living beings. Adolescents of all age groups judged harm done to an ecosystem as immoral and more unacceptable than harm done to humans.
Szagun et al. (Wed,) studied this question.