Attitudes toward empathy in domestic dogs and cats.

Full Abstract

This exploratory study included 524 undergraduate students (360 women, M age = 21.1 yr., SD = 6.1; and 164 men, M age = 20.0 yr., SD = 3.6) enrolled in introductory psychology sections who completed the Empathy in Pet Dogs and Cats Scale to assess their attitudes regarding how much domestic dogs and cats show vicarious experiencing of the thoughts, feelings, or attitudes of their owners. A principal components analysis followed by varimax rotation extracted five factors accounting for 60.85% of the total variance as follows:
(1) Pets' empathy for owner, (2) Cats' empathy for owner, (3) Dogs' empathy for owner, (4) Souls in humans and pets, (5) Owners' empathy for pets. Women gave significantly higher ratings than men regarding dogs' and cats' knowing when their owners are happy, sad, or angry. Women also gave significantly higher ratings than men regarding dogs' and cats' feeling love and compassion for their owners. Specific instances of empathy in pets underscore the need for contemporary research to be inclusive of operational definitions of measures of empathy.

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Author information

Author/s: Vitulli, William F (WF);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, P.O. Box U-1027, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688, USA. wvitulli(-atsign-)usouthal.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Psychological reports (Psychol Rep), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Dec; vol 99 (issue 3) : pp 981-91

Dates: Created 2007/02/19; Completed 2007/03/15;

PMID: 17305224, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Affect
Animals
Attitude
Awareness
Bonding, Human-Pet
Cats

Cats
Dogs
Empathy
Female
Humans
Male
Questionnaires
Sex Factors

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