Abstract
The Tennessee Self-concept Scale and Companion Animal Bonding Scale were administered to 394 university students to determine the influence of pets on adults' self-concept scores. No significant main effects of sex, type of companion animal, or human-animal bond were found. Significant interactions, but no main effects were found for those who listed only dogs or cats as their most important childhood pet. The interaction of childhood pet by sex indicated that boys with dogs and girls with cats had higher scores and girls with dogs and boys with cats had lower self-concept scores. These results support the hypothesis that children's relationships with companion animals are linked to their adult self-concept scores in a complex interactive manner rather than as direct simple effects.
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