Johnson: Humanizing pets may improve well-being

We call them our babies, put them in cute little sweaters or give them people names — truth is, most pet folks do it, though to varying degrees.

The obvious stuff is just the tip of the iceberg, however, and the human attributes we project onto our pets can get pretty complicated.

In search of ponies

It may be as simple as having a conversation with the dog, knowing (hopefully) that she is only processing one out of ten words.

Or it could be more involved, such as being convinced that the cat has extremely intricate motivations — he wants your attention, or he’s holding a grudge — when he marks the furniture, even though it’s something that unneutered male cats just do and has absolutely nothing to do with you switching his food or going out of town.

It’s called anthropomorphism and it’s the act of attributing human characteristics to pretty much anything not human. And it’s something humans do all the time to their pets.

While a pet may actually possess the characteristic being projected onto them, they also may not, as in the case of the human-level thinking they are often credited with, which can lead to some confusion, or better yet, delusion regarding reality for the critter versus a person’s perspective.

Generally speaking, anthropomorphism is fairly harmless, and the worst thing that will come of it are the looks from other people when you have a full conversation with your pooch complete with a squeaky baby voice meant to be his — “Do you need to go potty?”… “Yes, take me to that tree please”… “Sure buddy-boy, we’ll go over there” — and yes, most pet owners do it at one time or another.

Even those who think they are above such silliness are still guilty whether they realize it or not. Example: Animal memes — really, because when have you seen a cat hold a light saber or heard a dog articulately explain why they ate your shoes?

Not only is anthropomorphism generally harmless and sometimes fun – of course it can be tied to mental health conditions and has the potential to become unhealthy if excessive or extreme — but, it turns out it might also have something of a healing power.

Anthropomorphism, researchers recently found, actually helps people deal with social rejection by lessening their negative feelings and improving their feelings of well-being.

Psychology researchers from Pennsylvania and Ohio conducted an experiment asking people to write an essay about a moment of social rejection they had experienced, causing them to relive the emotions. After writing the essays, some of the subjects were asked to give names to dogs and cats in photographs, others were asked to give names to toys and a third group only viewed photos of animals or toys but didn’t name them.

What they found was the group who named animals reported much higher levels of well being than those who only looked at animal photos, indicating they felt better about the social rejection they had just relived.

Interestingly however, the group who was asked to name toys reported very similar feelings of well-being to the group that named animals.

What the study revealed, they concluded, was that projecting human traits onto animals or even inanimate objects helps people deal with negative feelings caused by other people — findings that mean just naming animals could help patients in various therapeutic scenarios.

It also shows that sometimes it may not be animals, but rather, the way we see them that makes us humans feel better — a fact pets can surely live with as long as there are treats, comfy sweaters and plush beds involved.

Sharna Johnson is a writer who is always searching for ponies. You can reach her at:

[email protected].