Berkeley Study: Helicopter Parents and Cat Ladies are the best for their pets! (and a little interview with the authors behind it)

By Anna Muggiati

Did you ever think that you were over-protective, anxious and maybe somehow neurotic when taking care of your pets? I did. And I never felt bad about it, as I always felt that my cats are emotionally well nurtured and cared for. According to a study that hit the big news this week, published last Thursday on the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, humans who emphatically love their pets have the same characteristics as overzealous parents.

This is the first U.S. study to encompass the bond between parents and children or between romantic partners with pet owners’ personality types, including if they are a “dog person” or “cat person".
 Mikel Delgado (Doctoral Psychology candidate at UC Berkeley) and Gretchen Reevy (PhD Psychology UC East Bay) surveyed more than 1,000 pet parents in the US, and analyzed some of their personality traits. Nearly 40 percent said they liked dogs and cats equally, while 38 percent identified as dog people and 19 percent as cat people. Just 3 percent declared "neither".

Mikel Delgado's kitties: Clarabelle and Beani

The online questionnaire was based on human and animal attachment. One of them was The Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale and the other about the "Big Five" human personality traits.  Another tool used was the Pet Attachment Questionnaire.

The results pointed out that people who scored high on "anxious attachment" need more  reassurance from the objects of their affection. On the other hand, people who are less affectionate and distant (also known as commitment-phobic) in romantic relationships, are much less needy. Both dog and cat lovers scored low on "avoidant attachment", indicating that both personality types enjoy close relationships with their pets. And that may indicate that the most neurotic and conscientious people are the super good pet parents.

Josie, one of Gretchen Reevy's cats

We asked Mikel Delgado and Gretchen Reevy to answer some questions for us, as we just had to know about their pet-love-life, and here is their mini-interview:

_ What made you choose this field of research? 

Delgado: I used to work in an animal shelter, and I am also a cat behavior consultant, so I have dealt a lot with pets and their owners. I've seen what happens firsthand when the relationship between a pet and their person is fractured, or when people are so attached to their pets they let that relationship impact other parts of their lives.

Reevy: I have always loved animals, especially cats. I don't have the background that Mikel has in terms of working in animal shelters or working as a cat behavior consultant----I have always been an academic----but in time I realized that with my background (PhD in personality psychology) I could do research related to cat welfare. Meeting Mikel helped a lot, since she is an expert on cat behavior. As Mikel and I started to talk about doing research on cats (or cats and other pets), we saw that there hasn't been a lot of research on how individual differences in people (for example, their personality traits) are related to their attachments to their pets, so if we did this research, we could make a contribution.

Another of the Greevy's family cats: Max

_ How the finding of the study could help super pet "parents" to cope better with their separation anxiety?

Delgado: We still need to do more research to know if a high level of attachment really means people take better care of their pets (as in meeting their behavioral needs) - that is something we are working on for a future project. I think it's always great to leave your pet with plenty to do while you are gone (solo play toys and the like) so you don't have to worry too much about them when you are away.

Reevy: This study didn't focus too much on people's characteristics independent of their relationships with pets. In other words, our study doesn't present data that will directly answer this question. Our study was intended to focus more on the welfare of animals than on the welfare of people! But your question is very interesting for future study. It may be the case that people who experience separation anxiety when they leave their pets are anxious in general. If that is the case, the solution is probably not easy....

_ Are you a cat or dog person? ( BTW I am a super anxious cat lady who parents 5 cats and two humans)...

Delgado: Definitely a cat person through and through and always have been :) Although I love animals in general, I definitely feel like I relate to and understand cats better than any other species! I have two kitties, and true to form, I do have some anxious pet-parenting tendencies.

Reevy: I am basically a cat person although I do really like dogs too. While growing up, my family continuously had cats. Three cats lived to be between 12 and 17 years old, and we had those 3 (all three of them, at the same time) from the time I was 6 years old and onward. I have never had a dog. Nowadays I have a husband and two cats, no kids. I consider myself an anxious person, too!!!

_ Are pets benefiting from human loneliness and isolation? Do you see a relationship with more availability of affection from humans to pets due to their psychological profile?

Delgado (and Reevy): Most research suggests that people who are close to their pets are also close to other humans, suggesting pets don't necessarily replace our human relationships, and people who love their pets don't have social deficits. That said, I do think that pets give us lots of physical and emotional rewards (such as the studies that show petting dogs releases oxytocin and can lower heart rate, etc), and I'd much rather come home to a house with cats in it than an empty home!