People with pets were on average not happier during the Corona Pandemie than people without pets. That writes a team of American researchers in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (June), based on research among a few hundred people (more than 80 percent women) who filled in a questionnaire online a few times in 2020 about love in times of Covid. The participants mainly came from the United States, Spain and Canada (and 2 percent Dutch). A little more than half of them had pets. The kind of pet (dog, cat, otherwise) did not hung together with well -being, the number of pets, nor was the character of the owner or how attached to their animals did not matter either.
People with pets did mention many more benefits than disadvantages of pets, in response to the open question how pets had helped them during the pandemic or not. The animals were always so sweet and comforting in the neighborhood, they reduced stress and gloom, it was so nice to look at them, stroking the skin hunger, it was nice to be able to walk with the dog and (keeping a distance) other dog people, and it was also nice that the animals did not realize that there was a pandemic. It is a pity that they sometimes get you out of your concentration, make junk and cause sadness in the event of illness and death, but the pets were mainly a source of joy.
Only their human roommates were not a measurable happier.
Unmarried men and women
Well, of course, there is quite something to argue with this research (and I will do that later), but the interesting thing about this article is that these results, write the researchers, consistent with a lot of other research. “Although pets offer people apparently and anecdotal benefits in the field of mental health, there is proof that pets are improving mental health,” they already report in the first paragraph.
What? But pets are so good for people, right?
Well, that’s not yet clear. People themselves say so, so there is qualitative evidence, but there is no quantitative evidence. This is evident from a systematic review from 2021, for example, published in Veterinary sciences. A team of (again) American researchers looked at all the studies they found in which the connection between pet possessions and mental health was investigated. In 17 of the 54 articles that connection was positive, in 5 positive and in 13 there was no connection. In 19 studies the context found was mixed: then were For example, unmarried women with pets, the least gloomy, but unmarried men with pets, the gleamest.
About a third positive and a third mixed studies: then the connection is still most often positive, and people with pets feel better on average than people without, you can think. But the relationship between pet possessions and psychological health was more often positive or mixed the lower the quality of the research was lower. And the research was actually often bad. According to the authors of the systematic review, a third of the studies scored a clear insufficient, while studies already received points for the most basic properties: if the goal of the study was clearly specified, if there was a petless control group, the sample of participants were representative, the selection method and the demographic methods. The fact that by far the most research was done in Western cultures is of course not good either, but there were no points for that.
Placebo-house animal
The most essential problem is of course the question: if people with pets are happier or less happy than people without pets, does that go because of those pets? The Golden Research Standard To be able to demonstrate such a causal relationship is: choosing a sample of people who are representative of the group you want to investigate, assign a pet to any chosen half of them (and perhaps to the other half a placebo house animal such as a robot or a cuddle animal), and in any case the mental health of the participants. Such an experiment is not possible for all sorts of reasons.
But in most studies the participants are not even followed for a longer period of time: three -quarters of the studies in the review only had one questionnaire moment. The Corona study at the start of this article had three for happiness and well-being, but it was only asked how much and what animals someone had and how close the relationship was. This way you will not find out whether people who are not so comfortable in their own skin, take a pet more often or less often. You cannot statistically check for the degree of well -being before someone took a pet. You actually know virtually nothing. So much in a human life can influence happiness.
In 2011 set Harold Herzog, author of the book Some we love, some we hate, some we eat: why it’s so hard to think straight about animals (2010), these problems, and a few others, already in a row Current Directions in Psychological Science. He argues that the health and happiness effect of pets has been an unconfirmed hypothesis for more than forty years, namely since a controversial Research from 1980 Among 92 people who had ended up in an American academic hospital in the heart department after a heart attack or chest pain. Of those 92, 53 had a pet and 50 of them lived a year later (94 percent), while of the 39 pet -free heart patients only 28 lived a year later (72 percent). According to Herzog, this small, explorative study started a stream of research into the positive effect of pets.
In the desired direction
Only the effect of pets on people, the causal context, is not to investigate experimentally and are the non-experimental studies that are often below par. Yet many researchers try to find the positive effect: pet research is often done by animal lovers who are convinced that pets are good for people, Herzog writes (by the way without substantiation, except that he himself is also a fan). Far -ranked researchers can unconsciously push their results in the direction they want. Then the positive effect of pets is overestimated.
Another problem is that studies in which no connection is found between pets and health or happiness are less likely to be published: scientific journal editors do not like it if ‘nothing’ is found. Those studies disappear in a drawer as if they never existed (it File Drawer Effect that is called).
And studies in which a negative relationship between pets and health or happiness is found, according to Herzog too little media attention, such as a Research from 2009 Among more than four hundred people who were admitted to an Australian heart department. Pet owners among them had twice as much chance of depression due to their heart problems (14 percent) than people without pets (7 percent) and more chance (22 percent) to be re -admitted or die than pet (14 percent) within a year later. But according to Herzog, you didn’t hear anyone about that, because people prefer to read (and write) about the positive effects of pets, which people with pets themselves also believe.
Herzog mentions one Research from 2009 Among patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. On standardized health questionnaires, patients with and without a pet had just as low scores, but people themselves attributed their pets all kinds of health benefits, especially psychological. Just like in the Corona study from the beginning of this article, people were deeply believed that their pets were good for them, but that is not consistent to get research.
Pets offer peak moments in life. Something similar plays with children
But do those people feel wrong then? Do they perhaps try to talk well for themselves that they have taken a pet that demands care and sometimes difficult, or sick (in jargon: do they try to reduce the cognitive dissonance they experience about it)? Or is the investigation falling short for the time being? For example, it could also be that asking for general well -being or health are unsuitable to determine what people have in pets. A (again) American Research from 2021 Early more than thirteen thousand people over 50 from hour to hour what they did in a day and how meaningful and happening every activity was, and playing with pets scored the highest on average. Perhaps that is what people like about their pets: they offer peak times in their lives.
That is reminiscent of research into children and happiness. Something similar plays there: parents themselves usually themselves that their children make them so happy, while research often shows that young parents are certainly a bit more unhappy about their lives and their relationship in the first few years after having a child, on average more unfortunate than childless peers. Children can generate positive emotions, but also negative: worries about their safety and health, sleeping problems, financial problems, stress, crowds. And the effect of negative emotions on happiness in life is generally greater than that of positive emotions. Like children, animals can be a source of care. And they also live for less long.
So do pets make people happier and healthier? What is certain is that people with pets do. And that more research is needed to whom and when it is and not and how exactly.