Comparing the Personality Traits and Psychological Welfare of Pet Owners and Ordinary People

Zahedi Ghazaleh^*, Tajerian Mostafa, Rozbehhussain and Khoshnazar Atefeh
^*Correspondence: Zahedi Ghazaleh, Department of Psychology, AJA University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, Tel: 9131433217, Email:

Keywords

Personality traits • Psychological welfare • Pet owners • Independent t-test • Extroversion

Introduction

About 70 years ago the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social welfare instead of just not being ill [1]. Jahoda criticized the idea of not having a mental illness as a criterion for mental health and proposed multiple criteria for mental health. Unfortunately, there was no significant advance in using these ideas in scientific and practical realms for a very long time. Health is a multi-dimensional concept which not only involves not being sick and incapable, but also involves the feeling of happiness and welfare [2]. The majority of psychotherapists, psychologists, and scholars of mental health neglect the positive aspects of health. The efforts for moving on from the conventional model of health have provided the necessary context for considering health as a state of well-being (and not just the lack of illness); however, this is not enough [3]. Of course, the new models of health mainly focus on negative features and their measuring tools for health usually involve physical problems (mobility, pain, fatigue, and sleep disorders), mental problems (depression, anxiety, and concern), and social problems (inability to play the social role, marital problems) [4].

An important aspect of well-being and health is the psychological aspect which is called psychological welfare [5]. The health model combines three types of welfare including emotional, psychological, and social welfare to provide a more comprehensive concept of wellbeing, which involves both the emotional aspect (emotional welfare) and the practical aspect (psychological and social welfare) [6]. Psychological welfare refers to the ability to find the talents of an individual, based on the Ryff model of psychological welfare, this concept has 6 factors, including self-acceptance (having a positive attitude towards oneself), having positive relations with others (establishing warm and close relations with others and the ability to sympathize), autonomy (the feeling of independence and the ability to withstand social pressures), purposeful life (having goals in life which give it meaning), personal growth (the feeling of continuous growth) and control over the environment (the ability of the individual to manage the environment) [7].

People with a high level of welfare usually experience positive emotions and have a positive attitude towards the events happening around them. On the other hand, people with a low feeling of welfare consider the events in their lives as negative and undesirable and experience the majority of negative feelings like anxiety, depression, and anger [8].

On the other hand, personality has been defined as the unique aspects and features of the internal and external characteristics of an individual’s manner, which influence his or her behavior in various situations and in fact they define the stable response patterns of individuals to various situations. According to Iseneck, personality includes the characteristics and behavior, thoughts, and even the physical traits of an individual which are relatively stable and define the adaptability of the individual to the environment [9].

One of the important theories in the field of measuring the personality is Neo’s five-factor theory. In this theory, five big factors including responsibility, extroversion, neuroticism, compatibility, and openness are considered [10].

Neuroticism is an aspect which is the basis for the chronic experience of worrying emotions. Neuroticism distinguishes emotional stability and calmness from negative sensation seeking. Compared to emotional stability, this factor involves a wide range of negative emotions such as anxiety, sadness, sensitivity, and lack of confidence, inefficacy, and anger. Extroversion as an active attitude towards the social land material world includes characteristics such as collectivism, activity, boldness, positive sensation seeking, warmness, friendliness, being talkative, optimism, and kindness. Openness to experiences or accepting experiences indicates the openness, deepness, and complexity of the mind and life experiences of an individual and also indicates the powers of imagination, curiosity, diverse interests, innovativeness, and intellectual attitudes. Adaptability distinguishes between relational directions and tendency towards others, and aggressiveness and controversy, indicating trust, sympathy, and cooperation. Adaptability involves characteristics which show what people do to each other and for each other. Kindness, geniality, trustworthiness, cooperation, forgiveness, and optimism are among the characteristics used for defining adaptability. Conscientiousness involves controlling the pulses defined by the society and it shows the behavior of being responsible and purposeful such as thinking before doing, following norms, planning, organizing, uninterrupted supervision, and believing in the importance of duties and includes the sense of efficacy, responsibility, and the need for progress and organization. It also includes characteristics such as discipline, trustworthiness, perseverance, self-regulation, punctuality, precision, neatness, and resilience.

Studying and understanding personality both for satisfying the curiosity and for social relation is very important. The goal of studying personality is to get a relative understanding of people and to judge them based on the information obtained. Anthropology and studying behavior will be only valuable when we can also measure what we are talking about. Some people encounter problems due to being conscious about their own personality in social and organizational relations since they often think that their behaviors always have positive consequences, while it is possible that the public has a negative attitude towards him or her.

The personality traits and psychological welfare and generally the mental health of individuals are influenced by various factors and different groups of people have been studied in this field based on their behaviors during the last decades. One of these groups which have been recently studied extensively is pet owners and their personality and mental health.

With regards to this, it can be said that the relation between human beings and human beings is very important for the health of an individual. However, due to various personality and social reasons, some people do not have this luxury. Therefore, it is possible that they seek relations with other parts of their lives such as locations, objects, or animals. In such a case, the relation between man and animal will be as important as the relationship between man and man for the individual’s health.

In many countries, having a pet in the house is a very usual and ordinary matter. In Iran, there are people or families who own pets. Owning pets is a phenomenon which has increased during the last two decades and ranges from various breeds of dogs and cats to fish and various rodents.

Two types of animals usually kept in houses include cats and dogs, in a way that 39 percent of American families own a dog and 33 percent own a cat. Various studies have been carried out on the effects and consequences of owning pets on the physical state of the individuals and the transfer of diseases from animals to human beings. According to these studies, dog owners can cope with stress better than other people. Moreover, these people will suffer depression far less than ordinary people. The results of a recent study show that single women who own a cat will have a lower level of depression. Scholars believe that the presence of any type of pet including dogs in the house will reduce the feeling of loneliness and increase the excitement of family members.

The findings of a study show that dog owners are more extroverts, happy, and conscientious compared to cat owners. Compared to dog owners, cat owners are more creative, adventurous, and nervous. Researchers in Carol University in Wisconsin show that cat owners are more introvert and incompatible; however, they are smarter than dog owners. Studies carried out by scholars in Hertfordshire university in England show that the owners of reptiles are more autonomous than others. Compared to dog owners, reptile owners are less interested in entertainment. They believe that their pets don’t have a sense of humor. Bird owners are more socially active than others. According to a poll by Harris interactive institute in 2010, bird owners are extrovert people and have a tendency towards domination. Fish owners are committed people; however, compared to others, they seem more introvert. Studies carried out by scholars in Oregon university show that fish owners are less pessimistic and will not be disappointed easily. Therefore, it can be said that pet owners have different personality traits compared to each other.

The first possible explanation about owning pets can be that continuous increase in the interest to own various pets in the house is an option to resolve emotional complications arising from the lack of deep emotional relations in the modern societies. Nowadays, numerous families have pets. Evaluating the psychological consequences of owning pets and investigating the personality traits of pet owners are very important.

Giovani et al. show that owning pets can reduce the feelings of loneliness and isolation and improve the social relations of elder people. Staci et al. show that the elderly who were treated with the help of animals showed a significant improvement with regards to depression symptoms. The results of studies show that pet owners can cope better with intense emotional complications such as depression and grievance, and they have a higher level of emotional health. Mogforfd and M Kumiskey show that giving birds to elderly will increase their mental health in a 6-month period more than giving plants to them. Serpel found out that pet owners, including dog and cat owners, experience fewer psychological problems compared to the people in the control group. Parselo et al. concluded that compared to ordinary people, pet owners have a higher emotional stability and extroversion. In the study carried out by Paden-Luis, there was no relationship between extroversion and owning pets; however, there was a relationship between emotional stability and pet ownership and pet owners showed a lower level of neuroticism. In the study carried out by Kid et al. on evaluating the personality traits of the owners of horses, snakes, turtles, and birds, the results show that horse owners scored higher than the other three groups with regards to boldness and introversion. Turtle owners were more hardworking and trustworthy. Snake owners were seeking new experiences, and bird owners were more extroverts compared to others. Dalirian et al. concluded that owning pets had a positive impact on the depression of elderly people living in nursing homes and having pets would reduce the depression of elderly people.

However, all the studies don’t show a positive relationship between pet ownership and mental health. For instance, Stalonzo et al. believe that such a relationship is not always there. Johnson and Warren didn’t show a significant difference regarding personality traits between pet owners and ordinary people.

Brown et al. show that pet owners have a lower level of social interaction and probably believe that their pets are compensating part of this shortage. Taheri Mir Ghaed et al., conclude that the mental health of owners of various pets have significant difference with each other and the adaptability of pet owners is lower than other groups. Choubineh et al., show that pet owners have a low level of mental health so that 30.7 percent of pet owners are prone to mental health disorders, 20 percent had physical symptoms, 29.7 percent had anxiety, 24.3 percent showed disruption in their social functionality, and 17.7 percent were suffering from depression. With regards to personality traits, dog owners had a lower level of adaptability and openness to new experiences compared to three other groups. The owners of other animals had a higher level of emotional stability compared to the other three groups.

According to the results of these studies, it can be said that there is a tangible and obvious difference between the results of studies in Iran about mental health and personality traits of pet owners and the results of studies in other countries, in a way that many studies carried out outside Iran show that owning pets has positive impacts on the mental health and personality traits and studies in Iran believe having pets is a symptom of mental and personality disorders. It seems that this difference in results stems from cultural differences and religious beliefs in Iran with regards to owning pets. However, it is worth mentioning that in the majority of studies, especially studies carried out in Iran, mental health and personality traits of the owners of various pets have been compared and generally the psychological welfare and personality traits of pet owners and people without pets haven’t been compared at all. This is a research gap in this field. The current study tries to bridge this gap by investigating this issue. Therefore, the main objective of the current study is to compare personality traits and psychological well-being of pet owners and people without pets.

Literature Review

Methodology

The study uses a causative comparative method and the statistical population of the study includes all the pet owners visiting veterinary clinics of Kerman city and ordinary people living in Kerman city within the age range of 18 to 45 years from August 22, 2016 to February 18, 2017. The number of pet owners visiting veterinary clinics was 250 people, among which 210 people cooperated with the researcher and answered the questionnaire of the study. These 210 participants were selected as the sample of the study in order to compare to the same number of ordinary people (employees in governmental organizations, shop owners, people visiting parks and green spaces around Kerman city). Therefore, the size of the sample for the study was 420 participants (210 pet owners and 210 ordinary people), who were selected using convenient sampling method. In order to increase the compatibility of the study, those people were selected who were 18 to 45 years old and had a pet for at least a whole year. In order to gather the required data, the following two standard questionnaires were used:

Psychological Wellbeing Questionnaire (RSPWB): this scale was developed by Ryff in 1980. The original form of the scale had 120 questions; however, in later studies, shorter forms including 54, 84, and 18 questions were also developed and evaluated. In this study, the 84 items form was used. This scale has six subscales including self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, control over the environment, purposeful life, and personal growth. The spectrum used for answering the questions included completely disagree (1), disagree (2), somewhat agree (3), agree (4), and completely agree (5). The reliability coefficient for this questionnaire was reported between 0.83 and 0.91 by Ryff and Keyes. Its reliability in Khodabakhsh and Mansouri using the re-test method was 0.85. Moreover, Bayani and Kouchaki indicate the acceptable validity and reliability of the Persian version of the questionnaire. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale is obtained as 0.90. In order to measure the personality traits of the participants, the five-factor questionnaire of Neo was used. This scale has 60 questions and for each question, the participant will obtain a score from 0 to 4. Each one of the questions indicates one of the five main factors of personality which include N (neuroticism), E (extroversion), O (openness), A (adaptability), and C (conscientiousness). Each one of these factors covers 12 questions in the scale. Overall, the participant will obtain a score of 0 to 48 in each scale. This questionnaire is normalized in Iran by Garousi Farshi. The validity of this questionnaire based on the test re-test method among 208 student participants with a three months delay was obtained as 79%, 80%, 75%, 83%, and 79% for N, E, O, A, and C, respectively. In the current study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the questionnaire was obtained as 0.88. In order to analyze the obtained data, descriptive statistics (frequency, frequency percent, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent ttest) using SPSS 22 software application were used.

Discussion

Hypothesis 1: Personality traits (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, adaptability, and conscientiousness) differ between pet owners and ordinary people.

Comparing the average scores of the five personality traits (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, adaptability, and conscientiousness) based on the independent t-test show that the significance of all the personality traits equals 0.0001, which is smaller than the significance level of α=0.05, therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. Hence, there is a significant difference between the two groups. Therefore, it can be said that there is a significant difference regarding personality traits (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, adaptability, and conscientiousness) between pet owners and ordinary people. Based on the obtained averages, the levels of neuroticism and openness are higher among pet owners than ordinary people. However, the levels of extroversion, adaptability, and conscientiousness were higher among ordinary people than pet owners (Tables 1 and 2).

Hypothesis 2: There is a difference regarding psychological wellbeing between pet owners and ordinary people.

Comparing the average scores of psychological wellbeing and its components (including self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, control over environment, and purposeful life) based on the independent t-test show that the obtained significance equals 0.0001, which is smaller than the significance level of α=0.05, therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. Hence, there is a significant difference between the two groups. Therefore, it can be said that there is a significant difference regarding psychological wellbeing and its components (including self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, control over environment, and purposeful life) between pet owners and ordinary people. Based on the obtained averages, psychological wellbeing and its components (including self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, control over environment and purposeful life) are higher among ordinary people than pet owners (Tables 3 and 4).

Owning pets can impact the psychological traits of individuals. On the other hands, psychological characteristics and personality traits of these individuals may affect their tendency to own pets. Accordingly, in the current study personality traits and psychological wellbeing of pet owners and ordinary people are investigated in a causative comparative study. Based on the results for the first hypotheses, the levels of neuroticism and openness among pet owners are higher than ordinary people. In other words, people with neuroticism or people who show openness towards new experiences are more willing to have a pet. However, extroversion, adaptability and conscientiousness were higher among ordinary people than pet owners. Accordingly, the results of Ambro et al., show that compared to cat owners, dog owners are more extrovert, happy, and conscientiousness. Giovani et al., show that owning pets will decrease the feelings of loneliness and isolation and will improve the social relations of the elderly. Parselo et al., conclude that pet owners have a higher emotional stability and extroversion compared to people without pets. Brown et al., show that pet owners have a higher level of social interaction and probably believe their pets are compensating for a part of this shortage. Paden-Louis didn’t obtain any relation between extroversion and pet ownership; however, there was a relation between emotional stability and pet ownership and pet owners had a lower level of neuroticism. Moreover, Johnson and Warren didn’t reach a significant difference regarding personality traits between pet owners and others. Taheri Mir Ghaed et al., show that regarding personality traits, dog owners show a lower level of adaptability and openness to experience compared to the other three groups. The owners of other animals had a higher emotional stability compared to the other three groups. The results of some of these studies aren’t in line with the results of the current study. One of the most important causes for this difference can be attributed to the cultural differences and the attitudes towards animals and owning them in various countries. For instance, the Iranian culture and religion believe that some animals are dirty and owning them is considered an unethical and illegitimate act. Therefore, it is possible that those people in the society who strictly follow religious beliefs and cultural values show less willingness to own pets in their house. Accordingly, when people have an unstable personality based on ethical and emotional criteria, have unpredictable behavior, have feelings of sadness, excitement, anger, guilt, mood changes, not satisfied with life, low self-esteem, and hatred, the probability of pet ownership will increase. Moreover, when people have characteristics such as an active imagination, the feeling of beauty, focusing on internal emotions, high diversity seeking with wide range of interests, and when people love any new thing, welcome new ideas, and have certain cultural and development attitudes, the probability of pet ownership will increase. On the other hand, if people are social, like others, be active, be talkative, be willing to participate in groups, and be optimistic, try to interact with others, and like group activities, or be an accepting, friendly, and interested in cooperating with and helping others, be trustworthy, kind, decisive, and humble, and when facing conflicts, be adaptable, they will have a lower tendency to own pets and prefer interacting with human beings to interacting with animals. Moreover, if an individual is precise regarding behaviors and ethics, is punctual and confident, have a high ability to plan, organize, and carry out duties in the best possible way, be a successful person in his or her profession, and try to reach his or her goals, he or she will have a lower tendency to own pets.

The other results of the study show that psychological wellbeing and its components including self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, control over the environment, and purposeful life is higher among ordinary people than pet owners. In this regard, Amber et al., show that lonely women will feel less depressed if they have a dog and dog owners can better cope with stress compared to others. Akimau et al., show that the presence of any pets such as dogs in the house will reduce the feeling of loneliness and increase the passion for life among individuals and they can more easily cope with intense emotional problems such as depression and grievance. Stacy et al., show that the elderly people receiving treatment through the presentation of pets show a significant decrease in the symptoms of depression. According to Garity et al., pet owners have a higher emotional health. Mogford and M Kumiskey show that giving birds to elderly people will increase their psychological health in a 6 months period at a higher level than giving them plants. Sarpol finds out that pet owners, such as dog or cat owners, have a lower level of mental problems compared to the members of the control group. Dalirian, et al. concluded that owning pets had a positive impact on the depression of elderly people living in nursing homes and having pets would reduce the depression of elderly people. However, the results of Stalonze, et al. show that there is no positive relationship between pet ownership and mental health. Choubineh et al., show that pet owners have a low level of mental health so that 30.7 percent of pet owners are prone to mental health disorders, 20 percent had physical symptoms, 29.7 percent had anxiety, 24.3 percent showed disruption in their social functionality, and 17.7 percent were suffering from depression.

Conclusion

Considering these results, it can be said that the results of the current study are not in line with the majority of studies carried out outside Iran. However, they are highly in line with the results of studies in Iran. Therefore, it can be said that the effects of pet ownership on the psychological wellbeing of individuals will vary based on the cultural context of the societies. In Iranian society, it is possible that due to the various ideas of religion for avoiding animals and considering them dirty, some people may have a low tendency to own pets. On the other hand, owning pets may not improve the mental health and welfare of the individuals due to the guilt they feel based on the religious an d social ideas about having pets.

References

1. Anderson, Warwick P, Christopher M Reid, and Garry L Jennings. "Pet ownership and risk factors for cardiovascular disease." Med J Aust 157 (1992): 298-301.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar] [PubMed]

2. Archer, John. "Why do people love their pets?." Evol Hum Behav 18 (1997): 237-259.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar]

3. Wells, Deborah L. "The effects of animals on human health and well‐being." J Soc Issues 65 (2009): 523-543.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar]

4. Albert, Alexa, and Kris Bulcroft. "Pets, families, and the life course." J Marriage Fam 50 (1988): 543-552.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar]

5. Cavanaugh, Lisa A, Hillary A Leonard, and Debra L Scammon. "A tail of two personalities: How canine companions shape relationships and well-being." J Bus Res 6 (2008): 469-479.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar]

6. Rhoades, Harmony, Hailey Winetrobe, and Eric Rice. "Pet ownership among homeless youth: Associations with mental health, service utilization and housing status." Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 46 (2015): 237-244.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar] [PubMed]

7. McKnight, Patrick E, and Todd B Kashdan. "Purpose in life as a system that creates and sustains health and well-being: An integrative, testable theory." Rev Gen Psychol 13 (2009): 242-251.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar]

8. Van Houtte, Beth A, and Patricia A Jarvis. "The role of pets in preadolescent psychosocial development." J Appl Dev Psychol 16 (1995): 463-479.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar]

9. Allen, Karen, Barbara E Shykoff, and Joseph L Izzo Jr. "Pet ownership, but not ACE inhibitor therapy, blunts home blood pressure responses to mental stress." Hypertension 38 (2001): 815-820.

   [Crossref] [Google Scholar] [PubMed]

10. O'Haire, Marguerite. "Companion animals and human health: Benefits, challenges, and the road ahead." J Vet Behav 5 (2010): 226-234.

    [Crossref] [Google Scholar]