Journal
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN
Volume -, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/01461672231203417
Keywords
pet ownership; COVID-19; well-being; personality; attachment orientation
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This study analyzed data from 767 individuals and found no reliable association between pet ownership and well-being. This association was not influenced by the species or number of pets owned, the quality of the human-pet relationship, or the owner's psychological characteristics. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis revealed positive reports of pet ownership, despite the lack of quantitative association with well-being.
Pet ownership has often been lauded as a protective factor for well-being, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. We expanded this question to consider how pet (i.e., species, number) and owner (i.e., pet relationship quality, personality, attachment orientations) characteristics affected the association between pet ownership and well-being in a pre-registered mixed method analysis of 767 people assessed three times in May 2020. In our qualitative analyses, pet owners listed both benefits and costs of pet ownership during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our quantitative analyses, we found that pet ownership was not reliably associated with well-being. Furthermore, this association largely did not depend on the number of pets owned, the species of pet(s) owned, the quality of the human-pet relationship, or the owner's psychological characteristics. Our findings are consistent with a large body of research showing null associations of pet ownership on well-being (quantitatively) but positive reports of pet ownership (qualitatively).
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