The Self - Van Houtte & Jarvis (1995)

OUTLINE

Aim - To examine the part played by pets in the psychosocial development of pre-adolescent people.

Hypothesis - Pet-owning adolescents would report higher levels of autonomy and self esteem than non-pet owners

Sample - 130 pupils aged between 8-13

• 71 boys, 59 girls
• Mainly white Americans, all from Illinois
• Participiants gave informed consent and the right to withdraw

The pupils were divided into pet owners and non pet owners, and where also matched on 3 other aspects

1. Parent's marital status
2. Parent's socio-economic status
3. Number of siblings

They asked them about pet ownership, such as the kind of pet, length of ownership, age and duties.

Data was collected from questionaires on well known scales

• Autonomy - 4 point scale response to sentences such as "My parents and I agree on everything"
• Self concept - 5 point scale response to adjectives such as "I am happy"
• Self esteem - 4 point scale response to statements such as " On the whole I am satisfied with my self"
• Attachment to animal - 7 point scale response to a series of statements such as "I consider my pet to be a friend"

The students were debriefed and thanked

Letters were sent home so that the parents could confirm pet ownership

RESULTS

1. Pet owners had higher self esteem
2. For 11 year olds, pets positively influenced their self concept
3. Pet owners had higher autonomy

It was concluded

• Pets have the greatest influence as children move in adolescence
• Pets can help with low self esteem, support others in times of stress, and enhance the elderly's feelings of responsibility
• Pets can offer unconditional postive regard for their owners

CRITICISMS

1 - There is always potentially a problem with self report in questionaires

• They may not be honest
• It may be difficult for the participants to accurately know their self-esteem

2 - The study used a lot of quantitative data 

• Difficult concepts are hard to measure on a scale
• This ignores the depth of these aspects

3 - The sample wasn't very representative

• It was age biased so cannot be generalised to older people
• It was ethnocentric, as only a small number of ethnic minority pupils were used
• It was culture biased, in other cultures, pets and animals may have a different role.