Humans Benefit From Their Pets? There Is

¶ … humans benefit from their pets? There is no doubt that many individuals and families love their pets and derive a great deal of psychological satisfaction from pets -- especially elderly people that may otherwise become lonely without their dogs, cats and other pets. But according to an article in Time magazine, several studies reflect the fact that pets can provide a great deal of support for the physical and psychological well-being of the individual owner of the pet.

Journalist Laura Blue explains that these research studies show that pets provide comfort and benefits similar to the comfort and benefit people derive from their human friends. Researchers from Miami University and Saint Louis University launched a research project ("The Science of Women and Cats: The Bond is Real") that was designed to test whether pets can really "fulfill one's social needs" -- that is, make a person feel "connected and in control of one's life" (Blue, 2011).

The results of the research group -- that was led by Allen McConnell at Miami University -- showed that the average pet owner "was less lonely, had higher self-esteem, and exercised more" than people without pets (Blue).

Blue adds a note parenthetically that points out that the study did not make clear whether the pets brought out those traits in the surveyed individuals, or whether "people with those traits are the ones who seek out pets in the first place." A second research study, titled "Dogs: A (Neurotic) Man's Best Friend," sought to examine dog owners in specifics.

The study determined (through the use of "standard psychological measure of social needs fulfillment") that dogs "…did indeed help their owners to meet social needs" and moreover, those owners "felt better about life as a result" (Blue). The researchers determined that degree of fulfillment dog owners received was "beneficial no matter how much support the owners were already getting from other people" (Blue).

The bottom line of the second research project Blue points to is that regardless of how much human companionship a pet owner already gets, "Pets are a boon to well-being" and friends and family "are not a substitute for pets." There was a third study that is reported in this Time magazine article, and it was conducted by McConnell at Miami University.

The professor and his colleagues surveyed college students and asked them to think about a time in their lives when they felt "socially excluded or rejected"; and after they recounted that unpleasant experience, the students were asked "either to write a passage about a best friend, to write about a close pet, or to draw a map of their campus" (Blue).

The result of the survey was that students who wrote about their friends or their pets "felt better afterwards" and were able to recover their sense of "self-worth and happiness" following the exercise in which they were required to recall rejection and isolation in their lives. The group of students at Miami University that decided to write about map drawing "remained a little glum," Blue explains.

What also came out in this third research project was that pet owners were as excited to write about their pets as they were to write about a best friend.