A new study has revealed that environmental awareness develops at an early age.
Jose Domingo Villarroel, a researcher at the Teacher Training College in Bilbao (UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country) has studied the capacity to differentiate between living and non-living beings and how this relates to environmental awareness.
118 girls and boys between the ages of 4 and 7 from public primary schools in Plentzia, Urduliz and Sopelana participated in the research and were interviewed by Villarroel himself.
He himself said that the work was very laborious, "but enjoyable and what is more, the results were very striking."
Apparently, children believe that hurting another child or plants is more reprehensible that breaking social rules, "also in the cases in which they think that plants are not living beings."
According to Villarroel, awareness towards others is developed at an early age and that the development of moral thought is linked to the affective world, in other words, with what they receive from their parents and educators, and not so much through logic or rationality.
The research has been published in the scientific journal SpringerPlus.