Abstract
Pets have numerous, effective methods to communicate with their human hosts. Perhaps most conspicuous of these are distress vocalizations: in cats, the ‘miaow’ and in dogs, the ‘whine’ or ‘whimper’. We compared a sample of young adults who owned cats and or dogs (‘pet-owners’ n = 264) and who did not (n = 297) on their ratings of the valence of animal distress vocalizations, taken from a standardized database of sounds. We also examined these participants' self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, and their scores on a measure of interpersonal relationship functioning. Pet-owners rated the animal distress vocalizations as sadder than adults who did not own a pet. Cat-owners specifically gave the most negative ratings of cat miaows compared with other participants, but were no different in their ratings of other sounds. Dog sounds were rated more negatively overall, in fact as negatively as human baby cries. Pet-owning adults (cat only, dog only, both) were not significantly different from adults with no pets on symptoms of depression, anxiety or on self-reported interpersonal relationship functioning. We suggest that pet ownership is associated with greater sensitivity to negative emotion in cat and dog distress vocalizations.
Highlights
57 per cent of US households reported owning a pet at the end of 2016, with cats and dogs being by far the most popular choices [1]
We suggest that pet ownership is associated with greater sensitivity to negative emotion in cat and dog distress vocalizations
There were no significant differences between participants who owned pets and those who did not on either their self-reported depression (EDS; pet-owners: M = 8.42, s.d. = 4.47; no pets: M = 8.70, s.d. = 4.15; F1,557 = 0.58, p = 0.45, η2 = 0.00) or anxiety symptoms (GAD-Q; pet-owners: M = 5.10, s.d. = 3.30; no pets M = 5.10, s.d. = 2.90; F1,559 = 0.00, p = 0.99, η2 = 0.00)
Summary
57 per cent of US households reported owning a pet at the end of 2016, with cats and dogs being by far the most popular choices [1]. While more households reported having one or more royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R. Dogs (38%), considerable numbers had cats (25%). Dog ownership is often viewed as healthy, and 2 beneficial in motivating owners to get extra physical activity, ‘The Lassie effect’ [2], named after a heroic, fearless television collie. Cats and cat-owners are regularly ascribed negative personality traits.. Cat-owners are viewed as lonely, more emotional, and more depressed than dog-owners. A pet charity reported that about 50% of the Americans surveyed believed various long-standing stereotypes about cat-owners (especially the ‘cat lady’ image2)
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