EFFECTS OF PET OWNERSHIP ON PRE-SCHOOLERS’ PERSPECTIVE-TAKING ABILITIES

Abstract

While past studies have largely lent support to the existence of a positive ‘Pet Effect’ and the resultant beneficial role of pets within the household, it is still considered to be a highly contentious topic. Given that past literature on the ‘Pet Effect’ has shown mixed evidence for the role of pets as possible facilitators of children’s development, this research aims to explore how the effects of pet ownership would manifest in Singaporean pre-schoolers’ perspective-taking abilities. A cross-sectional study using the Incongruent Items Paradigm and a variation of the Smarties Task was conducted with a sample of 75 Singaporean pre-schoolers, ranging from 4 to 6 years old. The Incongruent Items Paradigm was used to assess their affective perspective-taking abilities whilst the Smarties Task was used to assess their cognitive perspective abilities. The results obtained from this study lend support to the positive impacts of pet ownership, finding significant results for cognitive perspective taking. Whilst the results for affective perspective-taking did not reach significance, this unexpected finding will be discussed further in the paper.