The effects of pets and human-pet interactions on humans’ romantic relationships and friendships

Pet ownership and interactions with pets might influence humans’ positive affect and interactions with other humans. Some evidence suggests that there is a positive link between pet ownership and humans’ romantic relationship and friendship quality, but there has been very limited research. This experiment investigated the immediate and subsequent effects of pet presence and interactions with pets on adults’ positive facial emotional display and mood while they interacted with their romantic partner or friend (n = 164; 74 in romantic couple dyads and 90 in friend dyads) compared with a control object (stuffed dog toy). A standardized behavior coding tool developed for human-animal interaction research (OHAIRE-v3) was used to analyze the video data. The results showed that pet presence was linked to more positive facial expressions compared with stuffed animal toy presence, which seemed to be a short-term effect for those interacting with a friend and to have a lingering effect for those interacting with a romantic partner. The largest differences in positive facial expressions were observed between pet owners who had pet presence and non-pet owners who had toy presence, while there were smaller differences between pet owners who had pet presence and pet owners who had toy presence. Moreover, pet presence was linked to increased mood only in those interacting with a friend. The exploratory findings suggest that the cognitive presence of a pet might potentially still affect humans’ emotional displays while interacting with romantic partners, while the physical presence of a pet could have a more substantial effect on emotional displays. Participants’ perceived interactions with the pet during the experiment were positively linked to their facial expressions, while their observed interactions were not. Limitations of the existing measures and potential importance of pets’ interactive behaviors toward humans are highlighted.