The truth about cats and dogs: Pets are good for mental health of 'everyday people'
July 11, 2011 in Psychology & Psychiatry
Pets can serve as important sources of social and emotional support for "everyday people," not just individuals facing significant health challenges, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
And, the study found, pet owners were just as close to key people in their lives as to their animals, indicating no evidence that relationships with pets came at the expense of relationships with other people, or that people relied more on pets when their human social support was poorer.
Psychologists at Miami University and Saint Louis University conducted three experiments to examine the potential benefits of pet ownership among what they called everyday people. The results of the current study were reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published online by APA.
"We observed evidence that pet owners fared better, both in terms of well-being outcomes and individual differences, than non-owners on several dimensions," said lead researcher Allen R. McConnell, PhD, of Miami University in Ohio. "Specifically, pet owners had greater self-esteem, were more physically fit, tended to be less lonely, were more conscientious, were more extraverted, tended to be less fearful and tended to be less preoccupied than non-owners."
Until now, most research into the benefits of pets has been correlational, meaning it looked at the relationship between two variables but didn't show that one caused the other. For example, prior research showed that elderly Medicare patients with pets had fewer doctor visits than similar patients without pets, or that HIV-positive men with pets were less depressed than those without.
In this study, 217 people (79 percent women, mean age 31, mean annual family income $77,000) answered surveys aimed at determining whether pet owners in the group differed from people who didn't have pets in the areas of well-being, personality type and attachment style. Several differences between the groups emerged, and in all cases, pet owners were happier, healthier and better adjusted than were non-owners.
A second experiment, involving 56 dog owners (91 percent of whom were women, with a mean age of 42 and average annual family income of $65,000), examined whether pet owners benefit more when their pet is perceived to fulfill their social needs better. This study found greater well-being among owners whose dogs increased their feelings of belonging, self-esteem and meaningful existence.
The last study, comprising 97 undergraduates with an average age of 19, found that pets can make people feel better after experiencing rejection. Subjects were asked to write about a time when they felt excluded. Then they were asked to write about their favorite pet, or to write about their favorite friend, or to draw a map of their campus. The researchers found that writing about pets was just as effective as writing about a friend when it came to staving off feelings of rejection.
"[T]he present work presents considerable evidence that pets benefit the lives of their owners, both psychologically and physically, by serving as an important source of social support," the researchers wrote. "Whereas past work has focused primarily on pet owners facing significant health challenges
the present study establishes that there are many positive consequences for everyday people who own pets."
More information: "Friends With Benefits: On the Positive Consequences of Pet Ownership," Allen R. McConnell, PhD, Miami University; Christina M. Brown, PhD, Saint Louis University; Tonya M. Shoda, MA, Laura E. Stayton, BA, and Colleen E. Martin, BA, Miami University; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Online, July 4, 2011.
Provided by
American Psychological Association
-
Dogs' family status depends on family's locale
Aug 15, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Researcher reveals the truth about cats and dogs
Mar 02, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Pet owners are sick more often and exercise less than other working aged people
Dec 27, 2006 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Keeping canines healthy -- canine teeth, that is
Dec 19, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Pets must be protected from bird flu
Mar 13, 2006 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Why is zone 1 in liver more prone to ischemic injury?
May 23, 2013
-
How can there be villous adenoma in colon, if there are no villi there
May 22, 2013
-
How can there be a term called "intestinal metaplasia" of stomach
May 21, 2013
-
Pressure-volume curve: Elastic Recoil Pressure don't make sense
May 18, 2013
-
If you became brain-dead, would you want them to pull the plug?
May 17, 2013
-
MRI bill question
May 15, 2013
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Are there atheists in foxholes? Study says they're the minority
Ernie Pyle – an iconic war correspondent in World War II – reportedly said "There are no atheists in foxholes." A new joint study between two brothers at Cornell and Virginia Wesleyan found that only ...
Psychology & Psychiatry
38 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Breathing exercises help veterans find peace after war, scholar says
(Medical Xpress)—Research by Stanford scholar Emma Seppala at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education found that post-traumatic stress disorder decreased in veterans who participated ...
Psychology & Psychiatry
1 hour ago |
not rated yet |
0
Depression raises diabetics' risk of severe low blood sugar episodes
(Medical Xpress)—Patients with diabetes who are depressed are much more likely to develop episodes of dangerously low blood sugars, or hypoglycemia, than are those who are not depressed, a new study has ...
Psychology & Psychiatry
2 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
|
Motion quotient: IQ predicted by ability to filter motion (w/ video)
A brief visual task can predict IQ, according to a new study. This surprisingly simple exercise measures the brain's unconscious ability to filter out visual movement. The study shows that individuals whose ...
Psychology & Psychiatry
22 hours ago |
4.5 / 5 (10) |
1
|
Anxious men fare worse during job interviews, study finds
Nervous about that upcoming job interview? You might want to take steps to reduce your jitters, especially if you are a man.
Psychology & Psychiatry
22 hours ago |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
Engineered cytomegalovirus protects monkeys from HIV equivalent
(Medical Xpress)—A new study by researchers in the US has shown that an ancient virus can be modified to help in the fight against the simian immunodeficiency virus SIV, which is the equivalent in monkeys ...
Help at hand for people with schizophrenia
How can healthy people who hear voices help schizophrenics? Finding the answer for this is at the centre of research conducted at the University of Bergen.
Scientists put bowel cancer under the microscope
Researchers from London's Kingston University have begun a two-year study which could help prolong the lives of people with colorectal tumours.
New neuron formation could increase capacity for new learning, at the expense of old memories
New research presented today shows that formation of new neurons in the hippocampus - a brain region known for its importance in learning and remembering - could cause forgetting of old memories by causing a reorganization ...
Do doctors understand the individualisation of treatments?
The individualisation of drug treatments to support patients to self-manage their conditions is a concept that sits at the heart of policy, but a recent study in BMJ Open shows that there is no concrete defini ...
Saudi to send animal samples to US in coronavirus probe
Saudi Arabia said Friday it would send samples taken from animals possibly infected with a deadly SARS-like virus to the United States for testing in a bid to find the source of disease.