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Grief severity: A comparison between human and companion animal death
Contributor(s):: Lavorgna, B. F., Hutton, V. E.
Grief severity was investigated and compared amongst 50 participants aged 18 to 65 years who had experienced the death of a human (n = 35) or the death of a companion animal (n = 15). Participants were recruited in Australia and completed an on-line self-report questionnaire package, measuring...
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Relationships Between People with Cancer and Their Companion Animals: What Helps and Hinders
Contributor(s):: Nitkin, Patricia, Buchanan, Marla J.
This qualitative research project examined the impact of the relationships between persons with cancer and their companion animals. The goal of this study was to explore the helpful and unhelpful aspects of having a companion animal for people with cancer dealing with the emotional challenges...
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We Are Family: Viewing Pets as Family Members Improves Wellbeing
Contributor(s):: McConnell, Allen R., Lloyd, E. Paige, Humphrey, Brandon T.
The current work investigated how viewing one’s pet as a family member improves wellbeing. We hypothesized that including pets in a key social ingroup (i.e., family) would increase ascriptions of socially supportive traits to these animals, enhancing their perceived ability to provide social...
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Successful Aging, Social Support, and Ownership of a Companion Animal
Contributor(s):: Pruchno, Rachel, Heid, Allison R., Wilson-Genderson, Maureen
Studies consistently find that higher levels of social support improve the psychological and physiological health of older people, but findings from empirical research are mixed regarding the presence of a “pet effect”— the idea that living with an animal can improve human health, psychological...
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Children with Avoidant or Disorganized Attachment Relate Differently to a Dog and to Humans During a Socially Stressful Situation
Contributor(s):: Wedl, Manuela, Kotrschal, Kurt, Julius, Henri, Beetz, Andrea
Human attachment representations are shaped in interaction with the primary caregiver and are generally transferred to further bonding/ social partners later in life. According to previous evidence, primary attachment representations acquired with humans do not seem to be transferred to companion...
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Persistence during Tasks with Horses in Relation to Social Support, General Self-efficacy and Self-esteem in Adolescents
Contributor(s):: Hauge, Hilde, Kvalem, Ingela L., Enders-Slegers, Marie-José, Berget, Bente, Braastad, Bjarne O.
In young people, interactions with horses may contribute to the development of social skills and self-efficacy. Our aim was to identify relationships between psychological variables and young people's experience of activities with horses. Participants in this study were 13–15-year-old adolescents...
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Behavioural and physiological reactions of goats confronted with an unfamiliar group either when alone or with two peers
Contributor(s):: Patt, Antonia, Gygax, Lorenz, Wechsler, Beat, Hillmann, Edna, Palme, Rupert, Keil, Nina M.
When introduced into a new herd, goats are confronted with unfamiliar animals. Their behavioural and physiological reactions during this confrontation are likely to differ depending on the presence or absence of familiar conspecifics (peers). To assess these reactions, we confronted 12 goats both...
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Separation distress in artificially-reared lambs depends on human presence and the number of conspecifics
Contributor(s):: Rault, Jean-Loup, Boissy, Alain, Boivin, Xavier
The way animals perceive partners, including humans, is yet relatively unknown. Research has shown that humans can provide social support or act as social substitute for domestic animals. Nonetheless, studies investigating the perception of humans by domestic animals in their social environment,...
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Friends with benefits: Social support and its relevance for farm animal welfare
Contributor(s):: Rault, Jean-Loup
Despite growing interest in promoting positive welfare, rather than just alleviating poor welfare, potential measures of good welfare, and means to provide it, have remained elusive. In humans social support improves stress-coping abilities, health, and promotes positive psychological welfare....
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Friends with benefits: Social support and its relevance for farm animal welfare
Contributor(s):: Rault, Jean-Loup
Despite growing interest in promoting positive welfare, rather than just alleviating poor welfare, potential measures of good welfare, and means to provide it, have remained elusive. In humans social support improves stress-coping abilities, health, and promotes positive psychological welfare....
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'He's my mate you see': a critical discourse analysis of the therapeutic role of companion animals in the social networks of people with a diagnosis of severe mental illness
Contributor(s):: Brooks, H., Rushton, K., Lovell, K., McNaughton, R., Rogers, A.
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Laboratory Animal Welfare Meets Human Welfare: A Cross-Sectional Study of Professional Quality of Life, Including Compassion Fatigue in Laboratory Animal Personnel
Contributor(s):: LaFollette, M. R., Riley, M. C., Cloutier, S., Brady, C. M., O'Haire, M. E., Gaskill, B. N.
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The influence of contextual factors on an individual's ability to work with an assistance dog
Contributor(s):: Gravrok, J., Howell, T., Bendrups, D., Bennett, P. C.
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People of Diverse Genders and/or Sexualities and Their Animal Companions: Experiences of Family Violence in a Binational Sample.
| Contributor(s):: Damien W. Riggs, Nik Taylor, Tania Signal, Heather Fraser, Catherine Donovan
A significant body of research in the field of human-animal studies has focused on animals who live alongside humans within the home, with such animals often considered family members. To date, however, this research has focused almost exclusively on the experiences of heterosexual cisgender...
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Conditions for pets to prevent depression in older adults
| Contributor(s):: Cheung, C. K., Kam, P. K.
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The Intersection of Aging and Pet Guardianship: Influences of Health and Social Support
| Contributor(s):: Ranell L. Mueller, Elizabeth G. Hunter
Studies of the human-animal bond show many positive health effects for pet guardians including a sense of companionship, reduced depression and loneliness, and higher activity levels, yet few studies have examined factors such as how the pet guardians’ health, age, and social networks...
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Dog attachment and perceived social support in overweight/obese and healthy weight children
| Contributor(s):: Deborah E. Linder, Jennifer M. Sacheck, Farzad Noubary, Miriam E. Nelson, Lisa M. Freeman
The development of effective and sustainable interventions to treat childhood obesity remains both a priority and a challenge. Previous studies support that dogs provide social support in overweight adults in obesity interventions, but the child-dog relationship is not as well understood. The...
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The experience of acquiring an assistance dog: examination of the transition process for first-time handlers
| Contributor(s):: Gravrok, J., Bendrups, D., Howell, T., Bennett, P.
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The relationship between companion animals and loneliness among rural adolescents
| Contributor(s):: Keri Black
The relationship between loneliness and companion animal bonding was explored among 293 rural adolescents. Participants from two ethnically diverse southwestern high schools completed self-report measures of loneliness, pet ownership, companion animal attachment, and social support. Pet owners...
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Contributory Role of Pet Attitude, Attachment Styles, Social Support and Loneliness in Well Being of Young Adults
| Contributor(s):: Tapasri Das, Anindita Chaudhuri
