Women tend to feel more attached to their pets than men do, according to a new study from the University of Lucerne.
Researchers surveyed 2,328 adults about their demographic characteristics and their relationships with their animals. The results showed that women feel more attached to their pets and receive more socio-emotional support from them than men do.
"The relationship people have with their animals is much more nuanced than a simple yes-or-no question of pet ownership," the researchers explained. "Two people may both own a dog, but their relationships with that dog can be very different. Our findings suggest that understanding these differences may be more informative than simply comparing pet owners with non-pet owners."
The survey also found that people who spend more time with their pet, and those interacting with dogs specifically, tended to feel more attached to the animal and more emotionally supported by it.
No health boost found
Despite the emotional findings, the researchers found no evidence that owning a pet actually improves an owner's health. Pet owners in the survey tended to report being less healthy and smoking cigarettes more often than people without pets.
People who felt more supported by an animal actually reported lower psychological wellbeing and more loneliness, the study found.
"Rather than asking whether someone owns a pet, future research should consider how people interact with their animals and what role the animal plays in their lives," the researchers said. "What appeared to matter in some cases was not pet ownership itself, but whether people experienced their animal as a source of socio-emotional support and how much time they spent together."
"The inconsistent findings reported in previous studies may partly reflect the fact that pet ownership is often treated as a simple yes-or-no variable," they added. "Our results suggest that pet ownership is a multidimensional construct that includes characteristics of the owner, the animal, and their relationship."
Cats and human voices
The study follows separate research showing that cats cannot understand human voices and perceive laughter, sobs and screams as sounding identical. Lead author Dr Serenella d'Ingeo, of the University of Bari Aldo Moro, said cats do not immediately distinguish between happiness, fear, anger or sadness in human voices.
"They responded with a generalised increase in alertness, which may represent an adaptive strategy preparing them to react rapidly to a potentially relevant social situation," d'Ingeo said.
