How Emotionally Attached Are You to Your Pet

7/27/2019 How Emotionally Attached Are You to Your Pet

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How Emotionally Attached Are You to Your Pet?10 ways to measure the role of pets in your life

Published on February 28, 2012 by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. in Fulfillment at Any Age

No relationship that humans have is quite like the attachmentwe form to non-humans. Many of us

live with or have lived with an animal at some point in time. Currently, according to theAmerican

Humane Society, 39% of U.S. householders own at least one dog, and 33% own at least one cat.

Social psychologists argue thatpetsare natural objects of human attachment, being easily

accessible, active, and affectionate. As my UMass colleague and attachment researcher Paula

Pietromonaco put it, pets are "the ideal attachment figures." It makes sense, then, to study our

feelings toward these ready and willing attachment figures using similar methods that we use to zero

in on the nature of human-human relationships.

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Attachment theory was recently rated by a sample of social psychologists in an informal survey as

psychology's mostimportant theory in psychology. A derivate ofpsychodynamictheory, the

attachment perspective proposes that people vary in the way they relate to the key figures in their

lives. As adults, we recreate the relationships we had with our caregivers when we were infants with

the people in our lives who currently occupy center stage. Using questionnaires, attachment theory

researchers measure what they call "attachment style" or "attachment orientation" in which they

examine the patterns of expectations about a relationship, emotions, and behaviors that people

develop through their relationship history. Attachment style forms around what theorists call

theinternal working model, which is the way you think about the important figures in your life.

Our attachment styles are evident in the way we relate to these internal working models. If we view

these models with anxiety, we worry that our partners will not be available and supportive when we

need them and so try to remain as close to them as possible. If we are high on the dimension of

avoidant anxiety, we distrust our partners and try to remain as self-reliant as possible. Attachment

style isn't apersonality"trait" as much as it is an orientation and it can vary by attachment objects.

Your specific position on the two attachment dimensions can differ with regard to types ofrelationships such as family, friends, and romantic partners.

Armed with this background, what can you learn about attachment to the non-humans who populate

your life? Researchers Zilcha-Mano, Mikulincer, and Shaver (2011a) conducted a series of studies in

Israel in which they tested a scale they called the "Pet Attachment Questionnaire." They queried pet

owners (and past pet owners) in such places as parks, pet food stores, universities and malls; nearly

three-quarters had dogs and the remainder had cats.

In one study, Zilcha-Mano and collaborators examined the relationships between the two attachment

dimensions and the Five Factor personality traits. As you might expect, people high in attachmentanxiety in fact tended to be higher on the trait ofneuroticism. Those high in extraversion were less

likely to have avoidant attachment to their pets.

Next, the researchers explored whether people would compensate for poor relationships with

humans by forming stronger attachment bonds with their pets or whether people would match their

attachment orientation in human relationships to those they had with their pets. The "matching"

hypothesis won out over the "compensation" hypothesis. People's internal working models of their

human relationships do match those they have with their pets. People insecurely attached to other

people also are insecurely attached to the furry creatures in their lives. However, people who were

insecurely attached to their pets, regardless of their attachment to humans, had poorer mental

health. Pet attachment seems to play an important role in overall mental health.
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Since pets have much shorter lifespans than humans, a natural question to ask is how people with

anxious and avoidant attachment to their pets would react to their pet's death. As with attachment

toward humans, the loss of a pet can touch deeply at the roots of an individual's emotions. In

examining the relationships between pet attachment and avoidance, the research team found that

people high in anxiety showed extremes of emotional reactions; those with high pet avoidance

attachment were less distressed after their pets died and showed less yearning for their pets. On the

other hand, people high in attachment anxiety showed more chronic, unresolved grief. Surprisingly,

these reactions were explained only by pet attachment, not by the attachment style the participants

had to other humans. It's clear that the attachment we have toward our pets, in and of itself, is an

important feature of our psychological life.

To help you find out how you rate on your own pet attachment, I've chosen 10 questions from the

Pet Attachment Questionnaire, 5 from each scale. The stronger your endorsement of each item, the

more likely it is that you are either avoidant or anxious in your pet attachment:

Avoidance Scale

Being close to my pet is not important to me.

I prefer not to be too close to my pet.

Often my pet is a nuisance to me.

I am not very attached to my pet.

When I'm away from my pet for a long period of time, I hardly think about it.

Anxiety scale

I'm worried about what I'll do if something happens to my pet.

I feel that my pet doesn't allow me to get as close to me as I would like it to

Without acts of affection from my pet I feel worthless.

I am worried about being left along without my pet

I need a lot of reassurance from my pet that it loves me.

How did you rate? Remember, this is only a sampling of the full test items, but your responses can

give you an indication of whether you need to develop a more favorable orientation to your pet.
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Pet therapy, a rapidly growing field within psychology and mental health, is showing that pets can

play important roles not only to provide physical but also psychological support. In fact, Zilcha-Mano

and collaborators (2011b), are developing an attachment-based approach to Animal Assisted

Therapy. In this model, they attempt to meet unmet attachment needs of their clients to help them

develop healtheir modes of relating both to pets and humans. With this research, we can gain insight

not only into the role of pets in the lives of humans, but also ways to promote healthier overall

adjustment.

We need our pets but it's also important to remember that they deserve proper care. To find out

more, check out the excellent resources on theASPCA website.
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How Emotionally Attached Are You to Your Pet