Liukkonen, Iida Vilhelmiina (2023) Interspecies Social Influence: Humans and Their Cats and Dogs. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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I. V. Liukkonen Humans and Their Cats and Dogs.pdf Download (536kB) | Preview |
A thesis is an aptitude test for students. The approval of the thesis is proof that the student has sufficient research and reporting skills to graduate but does not guarantee the quality of the research and the results of the research as such, and the thesis is therefore not necessarily suitable to be used as an academic source to refer to. If you would like to know more about the research discussed in this thesis and any publications based on it, to which you could refer, please contact the supervisor mentioned.
Abstract
This study aims to find out about interspecies social influence focusing on how cats’ and dogs’ influence humans. The sample consisted of 462 participants and was collected mainly from first year university students residing in the Netherlands. The study was conducted as a repeated measures vignette study containing two domains, namely Security and Judgement. In both vignettes the pet reacts to pairs of strangers coming in for a viewing of a room and after which the participant is to indicate who they would choose as a roommate and who they like more. In the Security scenario the pet reacts to one person aggressively and have a neutral reaction to the other person present, we hypothesized that dogs would be more influential in this scenario based on the assumption that dogs are considered more as a group animal opposed to cats. In the Judgement scenario the pet reacts to the strangers favouring one person over the other, for this scenario we expected cats to be more influential. Furthermore, we wanted to examine whether owners and non-owners of cats and dogs would differ in the extent of influence. No significant difference was found between cats and dogs in the Security domain in terms of Liking or Roommate preference. Dogs were found to be more influential than cats in the Judgement domain contrary to our hypothesis. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between Owners and Non-Owners. The main hypothesis was supported, cats’ and dogs’ behaviours did impact people’s feelings and decision making towards strangers.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Spears, R. and Mulberger Rogele, A.C. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Jan 2023 14:59 |
| Last Modified: | 25 Jan 2023 14:59 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/1575 |
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