Pets' Position within the Family Structure from the Owners' Perspective: Sources and Consequences of Owners' Views

Abstract

Advances in the study of human relationships abound, but one area is lacking. It is still uncommon to include people's relationships with their pets in these studies. With secondary survey data and regression analysis, the understanding of a pet as a person by its' owner is established. This thesis analyzes six variables to predict whether a human will come to think of their pet as a person: pet type, pet owner's gender, the membership of the pet in the family, marital status, presence of children in the household, and educational attainment. The major hypothesis is that people who tend to be relationally deprived will more likely think of their pet as a person, and the results support it.