Communication with beloved pets can bring us no less benefit than communication with friends and family. Research results.
Emotional connections are necessary for every person: they provide us with survival and protection in infancy and serve as a support throughout life. Favorite pets help us in this respect just like native people. This conclusion was made by psychologists from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (Israel) and the University of California at Davis (USA). They asked dog and cat owners to complete a series of tasks with and without their pets present. It turned out that when a pet is in the room, the owners are less worried when memorizing unpleasant and frightening words (the pulse is not so frequent), they better formulate their personal goals and make plans for the future more actively. From the point of view of attachment theory, a paradox arises: animals act as parental figures for us, although it would seem that we take care of them, and not vice versa. So it seems that our subjective well-being depends not so much on the “direction” of our love, but on the very ability to approach, care for and appreciate communication – even if without words.
* Journal of Research in Personality, 2012, vol. 46, № 5.