PET AS SAFE BASE

The purpose of this case study was to explore veterinary technology (vet tech) students’ perceptions of their special relationships with pets that died; and to better understand how these perceptions influenced their work in the vet tech program and their beliefs about their future work with pets and pet owners in veterinary practice. The following research questions were explored: 1) what are vet tech students’ perceptions of a special relationship with a pet that died; and 2) what beliefs do vet tech students hold about these perceptions and their work in the vet tech program and their future work with pets and pet owners. A conceptual model based on the continuing bonds theory of bereavement served as a framework for the study. Qualitative data were obtained from audio-recorded interviews with 16 vet tech students enrolled in a two-year vet tech program. The researcher asked open-ended questions to elicit detailed understandings and analyzed the data using open and theoretical coding to identify patterns and themes in the data. Four key findings emerged from the data: 1) participants experienced special relationships with their pets that died; 2) participants experienced continuing emotional bonds with their pets that died; 3) participants experienced supportive and unsupportive interpersonal interactions with regard to their pets; and 4) participants' love of animals and continuing bonds with their pets influenced their engagement in the vet tech program. Three key conclusions emerged from the findings. First, participants’ perceptions of their continuing bonds with their pets were socially influenced. Second, participants’ continuing bonds with their pets had a positive, generative influence on their desire to help pets and pet owners. Third, participants expressed a deeply felt calling to pursue careers in veterinary medicine. Study findings have relevance for research and practice. Findings suggest direction for future research on continuing human animal bonds and the application of continuing bonds theory in veterinary education. Relative to education practice, this study has value for the development and delivery of pet bereavement education programs based upon continuing bonds theory. Veterinary students, practicing veterinary professionals, and practitioners who provide emotional support for bereaved pet owners, such as counselors, social workers and clergy, may benefit from training in continuing human-animal bonds.

Attachment & Human Development, 2011

John attachment theory is one of the most influential theories in personality and developmental psychology and provides insights into adjustment and psychopathology across the lifespan. The theory is also helpful in defining the target of change in psychotherapy, understanding the processes by which change occurs, and conceptualizing cases and planning treatment . Here, we propose a model of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) based on attachment theory and on the unique characteristics of human-pet relationships. The model includes clients' unmet attachment needs, individual differences in attachment insecurity, coping, and responsiveness to therapy. It also suggests ways to foster the development of more adaptive patterns of attachment and healthier modes of relating to others.

A growing number of studies have assessed the personality of pet owners. However, although there a large number of people that own exotic pets, their personalities have seldom been examined. Furthermore, studies of personality of pet owners have focused almost exclusively on typical personality traits, ignoring associations with ‘dark’ traits. Here, we assessed both traditional and some dark personality features in association with pet ownership and attachment in 325 pet owners via an online survey. We predicted that individuals scoring higher on narcissism and borderline personality features would be a) more likely to own exotic pets and b) less attached to their pets compared to people scoring lower on narcissism and traditional pet owners. Additionally, we theorized that neurotic pet owners would be more attached to their pets compared to less neurotic pet owners. We did not find an association between personality and exotic pet ownership but we found that those high in grandiose narcissism were actually more attached to their traditional pets. Those high in vulnerable narcissism were more attached only if their pets were exotic. Those high in borderline features were less attached to both kinds of pets. Personality assessments including “dark” features of personality may therefore be useful in predicting attachment to pets during the matching process of potential adopters to pets.

Journal of Research in Personality, 2011

In a series of studies we used attachment theory as a framework to examine human-pet relationships. We proposed that, as in interpersonal relationships, people differ in their degree of anxious or avoidant attachment to their pets, and that these individual differences influence pet-related cognitions, emotions, and behavior. We constructed a self-report scale, the Pet Attachment Questionnaire (PAQ), and examined its factorial structure, associations with attachment patterns in human relationships (Studies 1-2), relation to explicit and implicit expectations concerning a pet (3-4), and reactions to the loss of a pet (5). We found that individual differences in pet attachment do occur in the domains of attachment anxiety and avoidance, and these differences contribute uniquely to the prediction of expectations about the pet and emotional reactions to its death.

Journal of Research in Personality, 2012

We examined the extent to which a pet functions as an attachment figure. In Study 1, 165 pet owners performed a goal exploration task, assessing the number of life goals generated and confidence in goal attainment. In Study 2, 120 pet owners performed a distress-eliciting task while assessing blood pressure. In both studies, participants were divided into three conditions: pet physical presence, pet cognitive presence, and no pet presence. As compared to no pet presence, physical or cognitive pet presence increased the number of life goals generated and self-confidence in goal attainment and reduced blood pressure during the distress-eliciting task. The findings confirm the ability of a pet to provide a safe-haven and a secure-base and the moderating role of attachment insecurities.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2015

A large body of research has focused on the developmental trajectory of children’s acquisition of a theoretically coherent naive biology. However, considerably less work has focused on how specific daily experiences shape the development of children’s knowledge about living things. In the current research, we investigated one common experience that might contribute to biological knowledge development during early childhood—pet ownership. In Study 1, we investigated how children interact with pets by observing 24 preschool-aged children with their pet cats or dogs and asking parents about their children’s daily involvement with the pets. We found that most of young children’s observed and reported interactions with their pets are reciprocal social interactions. In Study 2, we tested whether children who have daily social experiences with animals are more likely to attribute biological properties to animals than children without pets. Both 3- and 5-year-olds with pets were more likely to attribute biological properties to animals than those without pets. Similarly, both older and younger children with pets showed less anthropocentric patterns of extension of novel biological information. The results suggest that having pets may facilitate the development of a more sophisticated, human-inclusive representation of animals.

Journal of Business Research, 2008

Downey and Ellis's article about the acquisition of cats is timely. Across Western nations, the popularity of pet ownership is steadily increasing. Reasons for the upswing are unclear. A cogent explanation is that increases in divorce, separation and single households, mean that more consumers seek companionship, and/or a sense of family, via pet ownership. Other explanations warrant investigation. Do time-poor parents use pets as substitute socialisation agents for their children? Do consumers use pets to enact multiple identities and/or resolve identify conflicts? Are parents susceptible to pressure from teenagers to buy pets for them as fashion accessories? Another issue looms large.

Sociality motivation, the need to feel socially connected with others, has been proposed as an important determinant of individual variation in anthropomorphic thinking. Specifically, it has been suggested that people who are socially isolated or disconnected will tend to infer more human-like mental states in animals and other nonhuman agents (computers , robots, metaphysical beings, etc.), than those who have higher levels of contact with other people. We investigated this hypothesis in a community-based sample of cat and dog owners, measuring degree of anthropomor-phism by asking them which emotions they believed their pet was capable of experiencing, how likely they were to rely on it for social support, and how attached they were to it. Structural measures of social disconnection, including the number of other adults living in the household and the number of social contacts outside the home, were not generally associated with the tendency to think anthropomorphically about pets. However, owners living in households with no children (under the age of 16 years) reported higher levels of attachment to their pet than did those with children (B = 1.678, p < 0.001), and felt that they derived relatively more social support from it than they did from humans (F (1,244) = 4.997, p < 0.05, partial 2 = 0.020). In addition, a trait-based indicator of social disconnection (self-reported anxiety about human social relationships) was associated with a heightened tendency for owners to report turning to their pet for support (F (1,244) = 19.617, p < 0.001, partial 2 = 0.074), and attributing more human-like emotions to it (F (1,244) = 8.354, p < 0.005, partial 2 = 0.033). These findings support a link between social disconnection and anthropomorphic thinking in a community setting; they also suggest that different forms of social disconnection (structural and trait-based) may generate different types of sociality motivation, and thereby influence different facets of anthropomorphic thinking.

Journal of Business Research, 2019

Results of three experiments reveal that consumers place a higher economic valuation on dogs versus cats, as evidenced by willingness to pay more for life-saving surgery, medical expenses, and specialty pet products, as well as increased word-of-mouth about the pet. This effect is explained by consumers' enhanced psychological ownership of and resulting emotional attachment to the pet. The effect is reversed when a dog acts like a cat and a cat acts like a dog and is due to the perceived ability to control the animal's behavior rather than other attributes intrinsic to the pet. This research offers a first look at psychological ownership of a living creature and its effect on economic valuation. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Yh0yXj-jRlTS