Nature’s Best Friend: Viewing Pets as Having Greater Emotional Experience Increases Ecological Concern

ABSTRACT

Human-caused environmental problems, such as climate change, affect the lives of both human and nonhuman animals, underscoring the importance of increasing pro-environmental action. The “Pets-As-Ambassadors” hypothesis proposes that care for companion animals may lead to concern for other animals and for nature more generally, but little research has examined the attributional processes underlying this effect or how these mechanisms may increase one’s commitment to protecting nature. In two studies using American student samples, we investigated how perceiving companion animals as having greater capacities for emotional experience (e.g., feeling pain, pleasure) is beneficial for pro-environmental outcomes. Study 1 (n = 179) found that greater perceived pet emotional experience uniquely predicted greater nature-centered environmental motivations and pro-environmental behavioral intentions, whereas greater perceptions of pet agency (e.g., pets can plan, think) did not. Study 2 (n = 182) experimentally manipulated perceived pet emotional experience by having pet owners read articles describing companion animals as having either high or low capacities for emotional experience. Participants who read the high emotional experience article showed greater desire to help the environment compared with those who read the low-experience article, and this effect was mediated by greater nature-centered environmental motivations (when controlling for trait empathy). In addition to identifying attributional factors underlying the “Pets-As-Ambassadors” hypothesis, our findings support the two-dimensional model of mind attribution by showing how perceptions of emotional experience inspire biospheric concern and helping intentions, and they suggest a novel pathway for increasing pro-environmental outcomes by persuading people to see their companion animals as having sophisticated emotional lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Biospheric concern
• companion animals
• human–animal interaction
• mind attribution
• sustainability

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Table S1 in the online Supplemental Materials reports a confirmatory factor analysis finding that a two-factor solution provides a significantly better fit than a one-factor solution, although neither model provides a great fit.

2 Zero-order correlations including trait empathic concern can be found in the online Supplemental Materials (Table S2), and analyses that include participants who failed attention checks can be found in Tables S3 and S4.

3 Analyses that include participants who failed multiple comprehension checks can be found in the online Supplemental Materials (Table S5); there are no significant effects if these inattentive participants are included.

4 Analyses without the covariate can be found in the online Supplemental Materials (Table S6); we note that the effects on intentions and biospheric concern are not significant without the covariate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) grants R21HD095132 and R01HD106416.