Biodiversity loss is one of the greatest crises of our time. While species loss receives less attention compared to climate change and other crises, it’s important to remember that we continue to lose species at a staggering rate.

In recent years, researchers have studied possible marketing strategies to increase support for species protection. While many psychological factors have been explored, the role of perceived physical attractiveness of a species and how that relates to a person’s political orientation and ideology have largely been overlooked. This study aimed to fill this gap through a series of three experiments.

In the first experiment, researchers recruited a representative sample of 500 U.S. participants via the Prolific platform. Participants were an average of 47 years old, mostly Caucasian (71%), and evenly divided between men (49%) and women (50%).

For the online survey, participants were shown a variety of images of endangered mammals, fishes, birds, and insects. Among them was the dead leaf butterfly (Kallima inachus), an insect who appears colorful with open wings and resembles a decaying leaf with closed wings — thus, the same animal can appear both more and less visually appealing. The researchers chose to focus their analysis on the butterfly.

Participants were then asked to rate how physically attractive the animals were on a five-point scale from “very unattractive” to “very attractive.” They also rated how supportive they were of protecting the animals from illicit trade, pollution and waste, and cruelty and persecution on a four-point scale from “not at all” to “a great deal.” The researchers measured participants’ political orientation on an eight-point scale from “extremely liberal” to “extremely conservative.”

Results of the first study revealed that:

• Overall, participants were more supportive of species protection when shown a picture of the butterfly with open wings (average score of 3.5) than with closed wings (average score of 3.3).
• Political orientation also played a role. Political liberals offered more support for the butterfly (average score of 3.5) than political conservatives (average score of 3.3).
• Considering both factors, conservative participants were as supportive of protection for the “attractive” butterfly as liberal participants were for the “unattractive” butterfly.

For the next experiment, a second representative sample of 497 U.S. participants was recruited via the Prolific platform. Participants were an average of 45 years old, mostly Caucasian (72%), and fairly evenly divided between men (48%) and women (51%).

The researchers followed the same procedure as in the first experiment, except that they also measured participants’ political ideology on two scales: the right-wing authoritarian scale (where higher scores indicate a greater willingness to submit to authority) and the humanitarianism-egalitarianism scale (where higher scores indicate greater support for ideals of equality, social justice, and concern for others’ well-being).

The second experiment confirmed the results of the first. In addition, those low in right-wing authoritarianism offered more support for the butterfly (average score of 3.5) than those who were more authoritarian (average score of 3.0). Participants high in humanitarianism-egalitarianism were more supportive of protecting the butterfly (average score of 3.4) than those lower in this trait (average score of 3.1).

For the third experiment, the researchers conducted the survey in Poland, where the political landscape is more diverse and less polarized than in the U.S., and where issues like environmental protection tend to be less politicized. A sample of 364 Polish participants was recruited via the Prolific platform. Participants were an average of 25 years old, almost entirely Caucasian (99%), and fairly evenly divided between men (50%) and women (48%). Again, the researchers measured perceived species attractiveness, support for species protection, and political orientation and ideology.

The results revealed some interesting differences between the two countries:

• As with U.S. participants, Polish participants overall were more supportive of species protection when shown a picture of the butterfly with open wings (average score of 2.7) than with closed wings (average score of 2.5).
• Unlike U.S. participants, political liberals and political conservatives in Poland didn’t show differences in support for the butterfly’s protection.
• Similar to U.S. participants, Polish participants high in humanitarianism-egalitarianism offered more support for the butterfly (average score of 2.8) than those lower in this trait (average score of 2.4). However, in contrast to U.S. participants, right-wing authoritarianism didn’t significantly influence support.

Taken together, these insights can help animal advocates better predict how marketing messages around species conservation will be received based on the animal and the audience in question.

• While all species deserve to be protected regardless of their perceived attractiveness, those perceived as beautiful are more likely to be considered worthy of protection due to a human tendency to equate attractiveness with goodness.
• Regardless of country, identification with humanitarian and egalitarian values of equality, social justice, and concern for others’ well-being is linked to greater support for species conservation.
• In the U.S., political conservatives show less support for “less attractive” species, while political liberals aren’t influenced by species attractiveness.
• Identification with right-wing authoritarian values of tradition, security, predictability, conformity, and ingroup loyalty is linked to less support for species conservation in the U.S., but not in a post-Communist country such as Poland.