Animal status as a response to pet owner experience

Abstract

It has been reported that pet ownership has positive effects on people's attitudes to other animals. It was, however, hypothesized in this study that it is the good experiences which bring this about and that bad ones would have negative effects. Two sections in a 21-section questionnaire investigated whether this is the case. Respondents described their experiences with pets. They reported their level of agreement on seven philosophical/theological quotations reflecting contrasting views of animal status, and on five specific uses to which non-pet animals are put. The hypothesis was partly supported, in that while good experiences did make a statistically significant difference, bad or sad ones did not.