Restuccia, Annabel (2023) Are we Socially Impacted by our Pets? The influence of dogs and cats on our evaluation of strangers. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Our study was intended to show what impact pets have on our lives. To investigate this impact, we created two scenarios where participants had to come up with estimations about strangers depending on their pet's reactions. The story of the scenarios turned around a person’s need to find a roommate. We distinguished between two scenarios, respectively ‘security’ and ‘judgment’ scenarios. In the first scenario, dog and cat reacted negatively to the stranger. We expected the participants to be influenced by that and to have negative feelings about the stranger when they had to make up their minds about this potential roommate. In the judgment scenario, the pet had a positive reaction toward the stranger; therefore, we expected the participants to have a positive response as well when they had to decide on this particular roommate. In short, we looked at how people valued animals' spontaneous reactions to emotions of security and judgement. We found that the reaction of pets influenced evaluation and feelings about people. Participants were more likely to put more value on dogs reactions when asked about forming a distinctive group identity. The stereotype of dogs being more social was found also in our study. The assessment of strangers was more affected by dog owners than by cat owners in the security scenario.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Spears, R. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Mar 2023 15:47 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Mar 2023 15:47 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/1838 |
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