Children can be afraid of wild animals and still love nature, scientists findSanjana Gajbhiye Sat, October 31, 2026 at 1:07 PM UTC
Children's curiosity about the natural world can coexist with fear of certain animals, according to new research. Credit: Shutterstock
A girl in Congo told researchers she was afraid of seven of the 10 animals they asked her about. Yet she still liked visiting the forest.
“I like to visit the forest. There are trees to protect me,” she said. She wasn’t alone in feeling both ways about nature.
Among 295 children in the United States and the Democratic Republic of Congo, fear of animals had little connection to their interest in nature.
Children who feared wildlife were often just as attracted to forests, gardens, and other natural settings as those who weren’t afraid.
Fear leaves room for curiosity
Vanessa Woods, a research scientist in Duke University’s Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, thought the most fearful children would show the least interest in nature.
“Instead, we found this fear could coexist with an attraction to the natural world in general,” Woods said.
The children were visiting a zoo or a bonobo sanctuary, where they answered questions and chose between photographs.
Those choices tell us what they said they liked, though they can’t tell us what the children would actually do in a forest.
In both countries, fear of animals had little connection to which nature scenes children preferred.
Even children afraid of beetles were no less likely to choose a backyard scene containing beetles and butterflies.
The team suggested that fear of a particular animal and interest in nature may do different jobs: one responds to possible danger, while the other draws a child toward places full of life.
A matter of temperament
In his 1984 book Biophilia, biologist E. O. Wilson argued that people are born with an emotional attraction to other living things. He saw it as an instinct everyone shares.
That idea helped inspire decades of research on nature’s psychological benefits. But the authors say evidence that everyone shares this instinct remains limited.
In 2023, Woods and Melinda Knuth of North Carolina State University proposed that attraction to nature might be a temperament trait, much like being outgoing or eager to try new things.
Some people would feel a strong pull toward nature, others a mild interest, and some little interest or even fear.
Drawing on earlier child-development research, the team used four signs of a temperament trait: it varies between people, appears early, stays fairly steady, and ideally has measurable signs in the body or brain.
This study looked for the first two.
Pictures and preferences
The children were between three and 13 years old. In North Carolina, 124 took part while visiting the North Carolina Zoo with their families; in Congo, 171 came on school trips to Lola ya Bonobo, a sanctuary for orphaned bonobos near Kinshasa.
The sanctuary paid for tickets and transport, so the visit didn’t depend on a family being able to afford it.
Sessions there ran in French, except for 64 children from two schools who spoke only Lingala and worked with a bilingual educator trained by the researcher.
Each child rated their fear of 10 animals from a standard children’s fear survey, including snakes, wolves, ants, and cats. They could say they were not afraid, afraid, or very afraid.
The photo choices included a pollinator garden or a plain lawn, and a rainforest or Venice. For a backyard, children chose between butterflies alone and a mix of butterflies and beetles.
Differences begin early
Some children consistently preferred wilder settings, while others favored cities, lawns, and more carefully maintained landscapes.
Even the youngest children, most of whom were American, differed in what appealed to them.
Woods had seen something similar in her own family. Her son loved mud and insects, while her daughter preferred gardens and neatly kept landscapes.
“You know why I keep [choosing] forest, forest, forest? I love a forest!” a five-year-old boy said.
A four-year-old chose cities instead, because “Mom can drive me around.”
The appeal of cities
American children feared spiders, ants, and beetles more, while Congolese children feared bears, wolves, snakes, and lizards more. Their overall fear scores ended up fairly close, with Congolese children slightly higher.
American children were more willing to welcome wildlife near home. They also chose the wilder travel destination in 46% of their choices, compared with 28% among Congolese children.
All the Congolese children lived in Kinshasa, a fast-growing city where tree cover is shrinking and wildlife rarely features in daily life. Many praised cities for being safe, clean, and pretty.
“The city is very pretty… the other place might have a crocodile,” an 11-year-old girl said.
A place to play
Garden choices didn’t differ between the countries. Some Kinshasa children liked lawns because they offered somewhere to play.
“I love the lawn, I would play with my dolls,” another 11-year-old girl said.
In Kinshasa, lawns and tidy gardens often need land, water, and household staff, resources mainly available to wealthier families.
The authors suggested that a child’s choice might reflect the life they hope for as well as their feelings about nature.
Overall, children in both countries chose the wilder, more varied pictures about half the time or less.
The researchers found that surprising, since visiting a zoo or sanctuary might encourage children to choose nature and push scores higher than they would be elsewhere.
More to learn
The findings don’t yet establish attraction to nature as a temperament trait.
The study did not establish whether these preferences persist as children grow or have measurable signs in the body or brain.
The groups differed in more than nationality. American children visited the zoo with families who could afford tickets, potentially introducing differences in their exposure to animals and interest in nature.
Children living near or within Congo Basin forests might also answer differently from city children, and the authors want future research to include them.
There is a lesson for conservation campaigns, too. If only some people feel drawn to nature, messages that assume everyone already cares about biodiversity may fail to reach many people.
Woods is discussing possible research with Sarah P. Duke Gardens, where children could explore a varied native plant garden and the carefully planned Discovery Garden.
That would let researchers see whether the photo choices match what children do outdoors.
“I think it’d be really interesting just to see where kids go and what they’re attracted to, and how they interact with different things that they’re afraid of or nervous about,” she said.
“Don’t give up on your kid because they are terrified of one forest creature,” Woods said. “There is still room for wonder.”
The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
—–
Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
—–
Source: Nature
0 Comments