Abstract & Extra Links

Abstract:

This study examined the concept of charisma bias, the natural preference for people to choose the physically attractive species over the less physically attractive, or uncharismatic species. This small preference highlights the bigger issue seen in animal conservation today, which is the disproportionate amount of efforts given to the lesser known, uncharismatic species, compared to their charismatic counterpart. Thus this study aimed at looking at how present charisma bias is in the wildlife docuseries Our Planet I & II, as no previous research had been done analyzing charisma bias in film portrayals. Film, among other medias, are important to look at when it comes to charisma bias as many people are unaware of this issue. But by consuming information online every day most are influenced by posts that contain charisma bias even if they themselves aren't aware of it consciously. While watching every episode of Our Planet, I analyzed each animal's charismatic score (to determine how many charismatic/uncharismatic species were featured) through my self made charisma scale. The results were the following: through looking at the average charismatic score of each episode, it was concluded that there were actually more uncharismatic to charismatic animals featured in both seasons(for the majority of episodes). Some charisma bias was still present in the second season, but future film portrayals of animals should producde their work similar to that of Our Planet's, because of how good of a job they did in limiting charisma bias.