Canis lupus. That’s where it all started: wolves. Humans started domesticating wolves at least 15,000 years ago in the attempt to develop their foraging techniques. From that process, appeared nowadays’ “man’s best friend”, also known as the dog (canis lupus familiaris). With this in mind, our very first use of animals was that of personal gains; whether to help us find food to survive, or, later on, to help us take care of livestock. This was in fact the primary use we ever made of animals as a whole. Millennia have passed, and our use of and relationship with them have changed quite a bit. While still using animals like dogs in the context of farming, or even breeding particular species in view of consuming them or the products they may bear, we have, during the fairly recent part of history, developed unique bonds with animals. The nature of those bonds and the roots they take in the human psyche is what I would like us to turn our attention to. How do the desires for owning an animal arise, and on what terms do we build these relationships with them? What are the power dynamics involved in human-animal interactions? Is our use of pets unethical? To what extent do our relationships with pets reflect on us as a species?
Human beings are undeniably social creatures. Since the dawn of time, people have gathered in groups, whether for the enjoyment of company, for reproductive purposes, or even for survival. Through time, company—whatever its nature may be—has become one of the most important needs our species displays, and one of the strongest human motives, without which people experience poorer physical and mental health (House, Landis and Umberson, 1988). Historically, a lack of company signified potential risks to one’s survival, given that if an attack was undertaken by a group against someone on their own, the chances of making it out alive were slim. Evolutionary psychology indeed explains this trait as a type of learned behavior, passed on through generations and eventually making it to the genetic level. We also display affinity towards those we perceive as peers, and often seek resemblance in others when social interactions become scarce. Company being one of our indirect survival needs makes us value it even more when we’re deprived of it. In those situations, we seize the opportunity for social interaction the same way a starving person would seize food. Our liking for seeing a part of ourselves in our environment also has for consequence the development of anthropomorphism. Whether to a god, an object, or an animal, we attribute human characteristics to elements of our environment in the hope of developing a two-way dialogue between an entity and ourselves. With a god, we practice prayers and talk to someone we imagine inside our head, trying to see their responses in anything that happens to us. Anthropomorphism towards objects is especially common among children, with the frequent occurrence of attachment to inanimate objects like plush toys or dolls, as well as the attribution of human traits to non-human cartoon characters, like Thomas the Tank Engine (a train), or Scooby-Doo (a dog). However frequent the attachment to objects and subsequent anthropomorphism is among humans, nothing compares to our attachment to animals, and our incorrigible tendency to give them human attributes.
A 2008 study by Nicholas Epley, Adam Waytz, Scott Akalis, and John T Cacioppo (“When we need a human: Motivational determinants of anthropomorphism”) proposes two specific explanatory factors for the human tendency to anthropomorphize non-human agents: sociality motivation and effectance motivation—sociality motivation being the need to feel socially connected with others, and effectance motivation being the “tendency to explore and influence one’s environment” (a notion introduced by American psychologist Robert W. White in 1959). In particular, the study examines whether individuals dispositionally lonely are more likely to anthropomorphize well–known pets, and if those who have a stable need for control are more likely to anthropomorphize apparently unpredictable animals. Epley and his team found that lonely people are in fact more likely to anthropomorphize animals by imbuing them with socially supportive traits, such as “considerate” and “sympathetic,” presumably to establish social connection with them. The focus on dispositional loneliness and increased tendency for anthropomorphism has in fact been explored through various studies. A 2015 study published in “Anthrozoös”, a multidisciplinary journal focusing on the interactions of people and animals, shares findings which support the link between social disconnection and anthropomorphic thinking, adding that “different forms of social disconnection (structural and trait-based) may generate different types of sociality motivation, and thereby influence different facets of anthropomorphic thinking”. A real example of the link between dispositional loneliness and pet ownership was observed during lockdown, with a total of 3.2 million households in the UK acquiring a pet since the start of the pandemic according to the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association. While 74% said their pet had helped their mental health, 5% of those who had bought a pet during the pandemic had already abandoned it by 2021, when rules around isolation loosened. Another study by Hong Im Shin & Juyoung Kim (“My computer is more thoughtful than you: Loneliness, anthropomorphism and dehumanization”) also found that “Participants attributed more humanlike capacities to nonhuman agents with increasing levels of self-rated loneliness”. With this in mind, the stereotype of the cat-lady therefore makes complete sense: a socially isolated elder finding emotional refuge and social support in an animal.
The ability of animals to improve emotional stability in humans has in fact given roots to their incorporation into the treatment of mental health patients, with the use of animal-assisted therapy. It was indeed proven that house pets can improve their owner’s emotional health by providing additional social support on top of the human connections the pet owner has. A 2011 study (“Friends with benefits: On the positive consequences of pet ownership”) also proved the ability of pets to assuage negative emotions caused by rejection. It turns out that an important factor enabling the positive influence of animals on the human psyche is the human psyche itself. Dr. Allen R. McConnell, University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Miami University, explains that the well-being benefits in people provided by pets take their roots in the fact that “humans imbue these animals with socially-supportive attributes, that in turn, psychologically translate into experiencing social support from them. Regardless of the actual capacities that animals might possess (Horowitz, 2009), if someone believes their pet is considerate and sympathetic, well-being benefits are experienced because social support is a psychological process.” A 2019 study by Allen R. McConnell, E. Paige Lloyd, and Brandon T. Humphrey examined this phenomenon in pet owners by using experimental methods, whereby one group of pet-owners were asked to write an essay about how their pet is a family member, and another group about how their pet is an animal. The end result was the following: the participants who had written an essay on how their pet is a family member showed better well-being and greater pet anthropomorphism at the end of the study. McConnell explains that “this enhanced tendency to ascribe stronger socially-supportive traits to their pet explained the well-being benefits experienced”.
By understanding the potential for animals to make us feel better, we can overall understand the motivations behind the human desire for owning an animal. However, humans being complex creatures, pet ownership doesn’t only represent a possibility for positive outcomes. Pet ownership, as observable through McConnell’s 2019 study, can also give way to cognitive dissonances when the animalistic nature of the pet is put into light. While many see their pet as a family member, pet owners frequently undertake actions which not only directly affect their pet, but which they would not undertake if it were a human family member. For instance, the practice of neutering (a euphemism used to refer to castration; whether surgical or chemical) is very predominant in our society, and oftentimes seen as a favor towards the animal; they will live longer, they won’t get into fights and develop infections from wounds… Whatever the rationale may be, the reasons behind this widespread practice mostly remain self-interested; forestalling the burden of dealing with the pet’s offspring, averting the inconveniences of the pet’s estrous cycles, keeping the pet longer by our side for our own pleasure… While many of us (pet owners included) feel appalled by the ongoing practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), which countless of women and girls throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia must undergo or have undergone, the thought of castrating an animal somehow remains palatable to the human psyche. It remains palatable because deep down—although we put great efforts in repressing those thoughts—we know that our pet is an animal (and therefore not part of our biological family), and that we consider the human species superior to other living creatures because we deem our intellectual capabilities to exceed those of any other creature we know of on this planet. One word describes this ideology: speciesism. Speciesism also explains our acceptance for the killing and consumption of certain animals over others. This ideology not only makes us assume we can express consent on the behalf of an animal incapable of expressing it themselves, but also provides us with a rationale to fuel our desire for controlling species we deem inferior to ourselves. Owning a pet provides the control that a lot of us crave, especially those who faced unsuccessful relationships with humans. An animal in fact doesn’t talk back; or at least, not verbally. The one-sidedness of the dialogue not only gives humans the upper hand in controlling the exchange, but also provides them the ability to take decisions for the animal. Likewise, an animal is dependent on us for food, shelter, affection. Their size often enables us to physically get a hold of them and provide us with a physical advantage over them. Consequently, when we want an animal, we simply go buy one. When the latter behaves like what they are by nature—an animal—we take decisions to control their behavior in view of our own personal interests.
From a philosophical perspective, this dissonance raises multiple questions—an important one being that of love. Most pet owners overtly express their love for their pet, claiming (as we’ve seen earlier) that the pet is a full-fledged member of the family, like their grandma, their siblings, or parent. What is then our definition of love? We castrate one, but oppose to genital mutilation for the other. We put a leash on one, but protect the freedom of the other. We don’t watch our language much with one, but do more with the other. Broadening the picture to non-pet-owners, we often hear the phrase “I love animals”. We also hear from the same individuals “I love my sibling” or “mother”, or “cousin”, or “partner”. Again, we eat one, but mourn the death of the other. The issue is not that we should eat our relatives like we eat bacon. The issue is around our notion of love, which we seemingly are unable to define, as per our actions. If we can’t define what love is, how can we then claim to love anything at all?
Closing this philosophical parenthesis and going back to our desire for pet-ownership, we can, from a psychoanalytical perspective, question whether owning a pet is a mature or immature coping mechanism. Answering it is far more complex than we could imagine. Determining the nature of the coping mechanism in fact depends on the real intention behind the action. On one side, if the ownership of the pet is taken from the perspective of mental-health and the will to improve it, or to prevent the further deterioration of it, owning a pet can ensure the healthy development of the superego (the ethical component of the personality which regulates the id, by providing moral standards by which the ego operates). By taking on the responsibility of owning and caring for an animal, someone with for instance attachment issues, can regulate the anxiety they may have around relationships by the fact of having a living being at home who makes them feel valued and appreciated, instead of resorting to self-destructive behaviors. On the other hand, if the ownership of a pet is taken with the intent to deny one’s real issues in life by giving one’s entire attention on an animal as main concern, we could deem pet-ownership as an immature coping mechanism. In addition, the pet-owner in that situation would be dependent on an external and physical element for their mental stability. If that element goes away in any way at all, so will the owner’s mental stability.
All in all, we know that humans are prone to use anything for survival, whether from an emotional or physical perspective. To save ourselves, or to save our sanity, we put ourselves first, and everything else last, from morality to other living beings. We use what we have in hand to either live longer, or to make life more bearable, more colorful, more entertaining, or all in all less boring. Although animals can very much thrive in a human home, be cared for, be loved and cherished, questioning the nature of our ownership of pets can help us understand ourselves as a species. By challenging our own desires and decisions, we may be able to better the exchanges we have in our species, but also with the rest of the world, and the creatures that inhabit it.
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Aude Calloch 