Contact with nature and experiences with nonhuman animals have been shown to contribute to nature connection and human wellbeing, both of which are innate needs according to the biophilia hypothesis. This study explores what marine mammal encounters mean to people and how they affect connection to and understanding of nature. It was hypothesized that individuals who had wild random vs ecotour vs captive

At zoos, and some sanctuaries, members of the public can observe the resident animals. Examining the characteristics and consequences of this type of human–animal encounter is important to understand public education and engagement as well as animal behavior and welfare. Zoos typically have a large and consistent visitor presence, and researchers report mixed findings regarding the effects of the visiting

Nonhuman animals play significant roles in children’s lives. While research into children’s relationships with animals is thriving, an overlooked area is children’s vicarious experience of animals through realistic representations in nonfiction books, magazines, and other media. We used content analysis to examine how animals were represented on 103 National Geographic Kids magazine covers from 2004

This paper uses a governmentality approach to examine the political history of human–canine relationships in the People’s Republic of China, focusing on the evolution of household dog regulations in Beijing. In doing so, it ties the micropolitics of human–canine relations to transformations in political, economic, and social governance and ways of thinking about and acting on the interactions between

The revised version of the UCLA-Loneliness Scale has been widely used to investigate the effect of pet ownership on human loneliness. This paper reports three tests of its efficacy for this purpose: 1) a qualitative evaluation of the 20 UCLA-LS items, which concluded that only 6/20 items were likely to tap differences in loneliness due to direct effects of pet ownership, acquisition or separation;

Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) is the positive changes a person may experience due to the struggle with a highly stressful life event. One of the predictors of PTG is social support, and support from various sources have been shown to help foster growth. Pets have also been shown to provide feelings of social support and to reduce feelings of stress. Despite this, no studies to date have examined the association

Although the relationship between pet ownership and health and wellbeing has received considerable attention in popular media, research on the topic shows inconsistent findings. We addressed the methodological weaknesses of previous studies by using data from a national probability survey (the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study; n = 13,347). We describe the demographic characteristics and personality

The relationship between companion animal ownership and wellbeing has received an increasing amount of scientific attention over the last few decades. Although the general assumption is that individuals benefit from the presence of companion animals (termed the “pet-effect”), recent evidence suggests that the nature of this association is diverse and complex and that many of the studies performed so

(2020). News and Analysis. Anthrozoös: Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 589-590.

Despite the prevalence of dogs as family pets and increased scientific interest in canine behavior, few studies have investigated characteristics of the child or dog that influence the child-dog relationship. In the present study, we explored how behavioral and self-report measures influence a child's reported feelings of attachment to their dog, as assessed by the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale

This study investigated the effects of a classroom-based animal-assisted activities (AAA) program with guinea pigs on the social functioning of primary school children. We hypothesized that participants in the experimental condition (n = 64), compared with a waitlist control group (n = 64), would demonstrate improvements in social functioning following the program. Parents and teachers used the Social

There is growing evidence that pet ownership and human-animal interaction (HAI) have benefits for human physical and psychological well-being. However, there may be pre-existing characteristics related to patterns of pet ownership and interactions with pets that could potentially bias results of research on HAI. The present study uses a behavioral genetic design to estimate the degree to which genetic

Evidence supports the contribution of depression, anxiety, and poor social support to mortality of hospitalized myocardial infarction (MI) patients. The contribution of depression to survival is independent of disease severity. Pet ownership, a non-human form of social support, has also been associated with one year survival of post-MI patients. The current study addresses whether pet ownership contributes