Definition
The concept of animal beauty explicates human cognitive abilities (cross-culturally in agreement) to subjectively perceive, evaluate, and categorize animals. The perception is determined by objective animal qualities such as size, shape, color, pattern, similarity to humans or familiar objects, and behavior. The perception of animal beauty projects into the qualities of human life, such as recreation activities (bird-watching, fishing, hunting, and attending zoos and wildlife reserves), happiness, friendship, and pet keeping, as well as animal welfare and conservation.
Description
Living animals evoke higher attention in humans than inanimate objects (New et al. 2007), because they might have represented predatory threats or suitable prey for our ancestors. Thus, humans have evolved universal cognitive abilitiesto perceive, rank, and categorize animals,...
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Frynta, D., Landová, E., Rádlová, S. (2022). Animal Beauty, Cross-Cultural Perceptions. In: Maggino, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_4168-2
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