{"id":418,"date":"2023-10-22T17:25:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T17:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/?p=418"},"modified":"2023-11-24T18:16:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T18:16:39","slug":"do-we-believe-that-our-pets-are-better-than-the-average-pet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/22\/do-we-believe-that-our-pets-are-better-than-the-average-pet\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We Believe That Our Pets Are Better Than the Average Pet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brad Bell<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pets are very important to us.  We may consider them part of the family.  Does our attachment to our pets make us feel that they have more positive attributes than the pets of other people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Study 1, El-Alayli, Lystad, Webb, Hollingsworth, and Ciolli (2006) had participants rate their pets and the average pet on 22 personality attributes.  Some of these were positive (e.g., loyal and friendly), and some of them were negative (e.g., lazy and mean).  On the average, the participants rated their own pets as higher on the positive attributes than the average pet.  Moreover, on the average, the participants rated their own pets as lower on the negative attributes than the average pet. In their second study, participants rated their own pets and the “average person’s pet” on the same 22 attributes. The findings of their secondly replicated the above findings.  Moreover, they found that this bias for perceiving one’s own pet more favorably was correlated with pet attachment.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, people who were more attached to their pets were more likely\u00a0to exhibit a stronger bias in the evaluation of their pets. (1) Imagine the implications of the findings. \u00a0If your dog is running loose in the neighborhood, you may describe him as an “explorer.” \u00a0\u00a0However, your neighbors may describe him as “reckless.”

Notes<\/strong>
<\/strong>
<\/strong>1. \u00a0See their article for other findings.

References<\/strong>
<\/strong>
<\/strong>El-Alayli, A., Lystad, A. L., Webb, S. R., Hollingsworth, S. L., & Ciolli, J. L. (2006). \u00a0Reigning cats and dogs: \u00a0A pet-enhancement bias and its link to pet attachment, pet-self similarity, self-enhancement, and well-being. \u00a0Basic and Applied Social Psychology<\/em>,\u00a028<\/em>, 131-143.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brad Bell Pets are very important to us.  We may consider them part of the family.  Does our attachment to our pets make us feel that they have more positive attributes than the pets of other people? In Study 1, El-Alayli, Lystad, Webb, Hollingsworth, and Ciolli (2006) had participants rate their pets and the … Continue reading “Do We Believe That Our Pets Are Better Than the Average Pet?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychologyandsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}