Relationship effects in psychological explanations of nonhuman behavior

Abstract Research suggests that close relationships with animals encourage psychological explanations of their behavior. To determine the causal effect of ownership on psychological explanations, we conducted experiments in which we manipulated participants' ownership of a target imagined dog (experiment 1), animated object (experiment 2), and real pet fish (experiment 3). Adapting scales used in previous research, we obtained ratings of how intentional the target's behavior was, the target's reasons (rather than causes), and references to complex human-like emotions, motives or characteristics. In experiment 1, 26 volunteers and staff at an animal shelter imagined scenarios involving their dog, a neighbor's dog, their friend, or a visitor. Participants' intentionality ratings and the target's reasons were similar for a friend, a visitor, and their dog. In experiment 2, 36 participants watched a film of three moving objects. Half of the participants were told the small triangle was theirs. In the ownership condition, participants vilified the “aggressive” big triangle more, gave more causal history for reasons, and gave more social, humanlike narratives. In experiment 3, 82 university students and staff were given a Betta fish either to own or to care for temporarily, and they were to report daily or weekly on the fish's behavior. Ownership and reporting frequency did not directly influence outcomes. Rather, ownership predicted commitment to, and affection for, the fish. Affection, in turn, significantly predicted participants' psychological explanations including how smart the fish was, how much the fish liked the participant, how similar the fish was to the participant, and psychological explanations of social behavior such as turning toward a visitor. Automated analyses of participants' language showed that affection also predicted their use of social psychological and emotion words to describe the fish. We discuss alternative processes whereby social relationships give rise to psychological explanations of behavior.

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