There's
something incredibly comforting about coming home after a long day at work and
being greeted with wet, slobbery kisses. For many people, interacting with a
pet is the ultimate antidote to a stressful day. In fact, in one study, when
people were presented with stressful tasks in four different situations --
alone, with their spouse, with their pet, or with both their spouse and their
pet -- they experienced the lowest stress response and the quickest recovery in
the situation where they were only with their pet.
Psychologists
explain our affection for our pets in terms of several different possible
contributing factors. First,
humans have been breeding the species that we adopt as pets most frequently to
have the physical characteristics that appeal to us, such as large eyes in
relation to the head, in particular. All dogs are members of the same species
(Canis familiaris), whether the short, squished noses of brachycephalic canine
species like those of the Pug and Bulldogs, the floppy ears of the
Labradors and Retrievers, or the skin folds of the Shar Pei, those
characteristics were all products of artificial selection by human beings. They
appeal to us the way they do simply because we bred them in the first place as
much for those physical features that we consider so “cute” as for their other
breed-specific characteristics and capabilities. The fact that we typically
“infantilize” our pets (meaning that we treat them like infants throughout
their entire lives) may have a lot to do with the emotions they evoke in us in
conjunction with way the physical characteristics that we have bred into them
appeal to our subconscious nurturing instincts.
