This study investigates the relationship between pet-ownership and subjective
well-being of adolescents who report few familial resources. The sample
comprises 1219 Swiss adolescents aged between 10 to 16 years (girls and boys are
equally distributed). 592 adolescents (56%) are pet-owners. The variables taken
into account in our analyses are: Pet-ownership (i.e., having played with their
own pet during the last week), personal characteristics of the adolescents
(i.e., gender, age, manifest anxiety), familial resources (i.e., family climate,
daily presence of family members, amount of leisure time spent with family
members, and socio economical status of the family estimated by the
adolescents), and the outcome variable, subjective well-being.
Multivariate analyses of variance with pet-ownership as the independent variable
were used to show in which respects pet-owners differ from other adolescents.
Pet-owners report a higher level of subjective well-being (p <.05), more
familial resources (p <.001), but not less manifest anxiety than adolescents who
do not have a pet at home. Both groups of adolescents do not differ in the
self-estimated socio-economical status, indicating that a higher living standard
does not explain the positive relationships. Finally, a three factorial
multivariate analyses of variance with manifest anxiety, family resources (both
median-split and controlled for age and gender), and pet-ownership, on the
dependent variable well-being was calculated. The results show that
pet-ownership, though directly related to higher levels of well-being and more
familial resources, cannot serve as a buffer for adolescents reporting less
familial resources (i.e. the interactions were not significant). These results
stem from the first wave of a longitudinal study. The longitudinal study will
provide more information about potential relationships between pet-ownership and
adolescent's well-being, and provide a clearer picture of the
animal-adolescent-relationship in case of loss of familial resources.
