Who tends to attach more strongly to their pet? – Owner personality and strength of pet attachment

Source (original paper)
Wells DL, Treacy KR. (2024). Pet attachment and owner personality. Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1406590
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. You may share, reuse, and distribute it if you give appropriate credit.

1. Why did they do this research?

Some people are very attached to their pet; others love the pet but keep some distance. The researchers thought that difference might be related to owner personality. Earlier work often looked at the Big Five (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and pet attachment. This study also looked at the "Dark Triad" (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy)—not as a moral label but as personality dimensions in psychology. These are linked to emotional distance, so the team wondered whether they were related to how strongly people attach to pets. They wanted to clarify the link between personality and pet attachment.

2. How was the study done?

An online survey was run in May–June 2023 with dog and cat owners worldwide. Final analysis used 938 responses (about 81% dog, 19% cat). The survey asked about demographics, pet type and how long they had had the pet, Big Five and Dark Triad (short versions), and strength of pet attachment (Lexington scale—e.g. "I see my pet as a friend," "I miss my pet when we're apart"). The team then looked at which personality traits were linked to stronger attachment and what role age, sex, and pet type played.

3. What did they find?

Higher neuroticism and higher conscientiousness were associated with higher pet attachment scores. Machiavellianism had a weak positive correlation but did not clearly predict attachment in the main analysis; narcissism and psychopathy were not meaningfully linked. Women, people 51 and older, people with minor children, and dog owners tended to have higher attachment scores than cat owners. The team also noted that very strong attachment is not always "good"—other studies have found that very high pet attachment can go with higher depression or anxiety, so the link between "how attached" and "mental health" is not simple. They suggested paying attention to the quality of the relationship as well.

4. What we can take away

The study does not say that certain personalities should or should not have pets. It shows that how attached we are to a pet can vary with personality and that neuroticism and conscientiousness are linked to that difference. Being very attached to a pet is natural for many, but it can help to reflect on how that relationship fits with our mental health. Because this was a one-time survey, we cannot separate cause and effect; it is best to take it as "personality and strength of pet attachment may be connected."

In a nutshell

Owner personality and strength of pet attachment can be connected. Higher neuroticism and conscientiousness, and being a dog owner, female, 51+, or having minor children, were associated with higher pet attachment. Dark Triad traits were not clearly linked to attachment strength. Being very attached to a pet is natural, but it can help to reflect on how that relationship fits with our mental health.

Source (CC BY 4.0)
Wells DL, Treacy KR. (2024). Pet attachment and owner personality. Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1406590
© 2024 The Authors. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).