Exploring the role of our contacts with pets in broadening concerns for animals, nature, and fellow humans: a representative study.

While pet ownership is normative in many occidental countries, whether humans' proximal contacts with pets have implications for attitudes and behaviors toward other (non pet) animals, nature, and fellow humans, has received limited empirical attention. In a large representative sample, we investigate whether pet ownership and positive contact with pets are associated with more positive attitudes and heightened concerns for non-pet animals, nature, and human outgroups. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among Canadian adults (619 pet owners, 450 non-pet owners). Pet owners reported more positive attitudes toward non-pet animals (e.g., wild, farm animals), higher identification with animals, more positive attitudes toward human outgroups, higher biospheric environmental concerns, higher human-environment interdependence beliefs, and lower usual meat consumption. Positive contact with pets was also associated with most of these outcomes. Solidarity with animals, a dimension of identification with animals, emerged as a particularly clear predictor of these outcomes and mediated the associations between positive contact with pets and positive attitudes toward non-pet animals, biospheric, egoistic, and altruistic environmental concerns, human-environment interdependence beliefs, and diet. Our results provide support for the capacity of pets to shape human consideration for a broad range of social issues, beyond the specific context of human-pet relations.

Pet ownership and psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The question of pet ownership contributing to human well-being has received mixed empirical evidence. This contrasts with the lay intuition that pet ownership contributes positively to wellness. In a large representative sample, we investigate the differences that may exist between pet vs. non-pet owners in terms of their well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examine among different sociodemographic strata, for whom pet ownership can be more vs. less beneficial. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among Canadian adults (1220 pet owners, 1204 non-pet owners). Pet owners reported lower well-being than non-pet owners on a majority of well-being indicators; this general pet ownership effect held when accounting for pet species (dogs, cats, other species) and number of pets owned. Compared to owners of other pets, dog owners reported higher well-being. When examining the effect of pet ownership within different socioeconomic strata, being a pet owner was associated with lower well-being among: women; people who have 2 + children living at home; people who are unemployed. Our results offer a counterpoint to popular beliefs emphasising the benefits of pets to human wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic and confirm the importance of accounting for sociodemographic factors to further understand the experience of pet ownership.