Fritts 1

Nicholas Fritts
Professor Jizi
UWRT1102-029
2 March 2016

Double Entry Journal

Citation: Herzog, Harold. "The Impact of Pets on Human Health and Psychological Well-Being:
Fact, Fiction, or Hypothesis?" Current Directions in Psychological Science. 20.4 (2011): 236239. Web. 1 March 2016.

Source: Quote (Page# or Paragraph #)

Responses

the public has come to accept as fact

the idea that pets can also serve as
substitutes for physicians and clinical
psychologists. P.236

I dont think pets can replace actual

professionals, but I believe that they do aid in
human health.

Claims about the medical and

I think that it is very important to look at this

research objectively. If pets dont have an
effect on human health then that is useful
information. If they do, that is also useful.

psychological
benefits of living with animals need to be
subjected to
the same standards of evidence as a new
drug, medical device, or form of
psychotherapy. P.236-237

Here I argue that, contrary to media

reports, an
examination of this body of literature
indicates that the pet effect remains an
uncorroborated hypothesis rather than an
established fact. P.237

People like Herzog are need to be sure that

research is not skewed or flawed.

an early study of 92 heart-attack

There are many factors in place here, such

as: their doctor, family history, physical
condition, etc. I like to think that the dogs
helped but with all these variables it is hard to
say.

victims in which
28% of pet owners survived for at least a
year as compared to only 6% of nonpet
owners (Friedmann, Katcher, Lynch, &
Thomas, 1980). P.237

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subjects in the pet group showed lower

increases in blood pressure than did those
in the non-pet control condition (Allen,
Shykoff, & Izzo, 2001). P.237

I think this study show that pets can help

decrease stress, and in turn blood pressure,
in humans.

For instance, there was no media

coverage of a recent study of 425 heartattack victims that found pet owners were
more likely than nonpet owners to die or
suffer remissions within a year of suffering
their heart attack (22% vs. 14%; Parker et
al., 2010). P.237

This study competes with the one mentioned

before. The author brings this up not to refute
the idea of pets on well-being but to suggest
that more research needs to be done and
more thought through studies need to be
conducted.

Design problems are common in studies

of humananimal interactions. Metaanalyses enable scientists to look for
patterns in the results of multiple studies
on the same topic, but there have been no
meta-analyses of studies of the effects of
pets on owner happiness or health. P.238

In my search for trying to find the answer to,

Do pets increase human well-being?, as part
of, Should pets be allowed in college dorms?,
I am seeing this. Obviously they havent yet
been able to fix their studies and analysis.

There is also the problem of how to

interpret differences between pet owners
and nonowners. Most studies reporting
positive effects of pets are not true
experiments in which the subjects are
randomly assigned to pet and non-pet
groups. P.238

It seems that there is no good way to interpret

the data collected because of the many other
variables of each group. They need to study
twins, one with a pet and one without.

Indeed, companion animals have always

been part of my own life, and I understand
the joys that come with living with
members of other species. Nor am I
arguing that behavioral scientists should
avoid studying the impact of animals on
human health and well-being. In fact, we
need more rather than less research on
this topic. P.238

I agree that we need more research because

it has not been easy researching my topic. I
have yet to find a study of pets and college
students.