Scientific American MIND’s online survey of pet owners uncovered some interesting results when people were asked about their interspecies relationships
Apr 9, 2015
|By
Andrea Alfano
If one thing is clear from the results, it’s that the answer is complex.
This is reflected in the incredibly heterogeneous responses we received
from readers who, as it turned out, keep a remarkable array of pets.
Nevertheless, a few patterns did emerge—particularly in answer to this
question: Explain why you prefer cats, dogs, neither or both. The
answers yielded such distinct camps that we decided to visualize them as
word clouds (in which the size of each word reflects how frequently it
was used).
Cat people tended to focus on practical reasons for loving felines,
namely the lower maintenance demands. More than any other descriptive,
the word “independent” dominated, perhaps because it both describes the
feline personality and the ease of cat care. It came up a whopping 139
times in the explanations that the 520 self-described cat people gave
for their preferences.
Word cloud generated from the responses by 520 self-described cat people. Click to enlarge.
Dog people, on the other hand, emphasized classic canine personality
traits. Words such as “loyal,” “loving,” “affectionate” and “companions”
came up repeatedly. Some more practical considerations came up as well,
particularly allergies to cats that all but disqualified felines as
pets. But it was clear that, above all, dog people valued the close
interactions they have with their pets—a sharp contrast from cat
people’s emphasis on independence.
Word cloud generated from the responses by 817 self-described dog people. Click to enlarge.
Although the majority of pet owners in our poll kept either a cat or a
dog, more participants identified themselves as both cat and dog people
than either or neither type. In their explanations these cat- and
dog-loving people tended to emphasize that each species appeals to
different parts of their personalities and that they are fond of many
other kinds of animals as well.
Word cloud generated from responses by 909 participants who described themselves as both cat and dog people. Click to enlarge.
Personality data from poll participants also revealed a few patterns.
We asked readers to rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, how strongly they
identified with certain descriptors, such as assertiveness and empathy.
As in previous studies
and polls, we found that cat people tend to rate themselves as more
reserved and quiet than dog people do. Findings like these support the
notion that certain personality traits may predispose a person to
choosing one pet over another. But our survey also found that on many
measures these two archetypal pet owners were not so different. Their
self-ratings of openness to new experiences and dependability, for
example, were very similar.
Although cats and dogs were by far the most popular pets, participants
in our survey also reported keeping shrews, squirrels, potbellied pigs
and fennec foxes (among other unusual animals). After dogs and cats, the
most popular pets in our survey were fish, birds, rabbits, horses and
turtles, in that order.
Another piece of the pet preference puzzle is that, of course, many
people keep more than one type of pet. We found a few pet-pairing
trends. For example, more than 80 percent of horse owners also own a dog
and, more surprisingly, 25 percent of snake owners also own a bird.
An important caveat: our survey was informal, not scientific. In
fact, rigorous research on the subject remains scarce. Even so, our
findings contribute to a growing appreciation of the powerful bond
between pets and people, and how much about it remains to be explored.
This article was originally published with the title "What Your Pet Reveals about You."
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