(Press-News.org)
A new study challenges the belief in a universal “pet effect” on human well-being. Using data collected during COVID-19 lockdowns, researchers found no significant change in respondents' well-being when they acquired or lost a pet in their household. The findings suggest that, even during a time of extreme isolation, human-animal bonds may not be as emotionally transformative as we like to believe.
Humans and their pets, a match made in heaven? Does adopting a new dog make you happier and less lonely? It is now commonplace to associate pet ownership with health and happiness for the human and the animal. Still, science has had a hard time pinning down the ‘pet effect’ - a hypothesised boost in life quality for those who surround themselves with cats, dogs, or other companion animals. Only a few years ago, circumstances presented us with a severe test of the importance of human-animal bonds—a global pandemic, COVID-19, which confined people to their homes, cutting them off from face-to-face contact in both work and personal life.
Researchers at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University have examined how pet acquisition and loss were experienced during the pandemic and the short- and long-term effects of acquiring a pet on the participants. The study was published in Scientific Reports. “Through a collaboration with a psychologist team led by Zsolt Demetrovics and Róbert Urbán, we had access to a unique data set”, explains Eniko Kubinyi, head of the MTA-ELTE ‘Momentum’ Companion Animals Research Group. “During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, almost three thousand people across Hungary participated three times in data collection, several months apart. We noticed that 65 people acquired a pet and 75 lost one during the study, and decided to investigate how their well-being changed over time.”
The researchers found little support for the romanticised view we hold of pet owners and their emotional well-being. A short-lived boost in cheerfulness appeared after acquiring a dog, however, in a long run, dog owners’ calmness, life-satisfaction, cheerfulness, and activity had gone down. Most surprisingly, the researchers found that losing a pet did not leave a mark on the well-being of their former owners.
Ádám Miklósi, who initiated the data collection on companion animals, emphasises, “We rarely have access to data that documents spontaneous pet acquisition from people unbiased in their attitude toward pet ownership. Usually, pet lovers are identified and studied when the decision to adopt an animal is already settled. It appears that, at least during stressful periods, the average person, who may not be the primary caregiver but simply shares a household with the pet, is not significantly affected by the pet’s loss, nor is their well-being a strong predictor of the decision to acquire one.”
“What surprised me most,’ adds Judit Mokos, data scientist and one of the paper's first authors, ‘was that a new pet in the household had no effect on the respondents’ loneliness. Dog adoption is often promoted as a solution for elderly and/or lonely people. Shelters and pet food companies promote adoption as a means of alleviating loneliness. However, our research suggests that dogs do not provide a real solution to loneliness; rather, they make the new owners more anxious."
Kubinyi concludes, “Based on the data, most people, living together with a companion animal, do not seem to experience any long-term ‘pet effect’, nor do they bond strongly with their animal. It is possible that the dynamics of the pandemic have led many to make impulsive choices against their long-term interest, or that only certain groups—like devoted animal lovers or older adults living alone—truly benefit from pets in stressful times.”
It appears that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the emotional bonds people formed with animals often fell short of expectations.
Original study: Mokos*, J., Kubinyi*, E., Ujfalussy, D., Iotchec, I.B., Paksi, B., Demetrovics, Z., Urbán, R., Miklósi, Á. Short-term effects of pet acquisition and loss on well-being in an unbiased sample during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific Report. *contributed equally. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-06987-7
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Embargo 01 July 2025 at 10:00 London time / 05:00 US Eastern Time
Peer-reviewed / Genomics / Cancer treatment
NEW INSIGHTS ON GENETIC DAMAGE OF SOME CHEMOTHERAPIES COULD GUIDE FUTURE TREATMENTS WITH LESS HARMFUL SIDE EFFECTS
For the first time, scientists have systematically studied the genetic effects of chemotherapy on healthy tissues.
Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) and their collaborators analysed blood cell genomes from 23 patients of all ages who had been treated with a range of chemotherapies.
Published ...
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Scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified a family of bacterial species, found naturally in the human gut, that absorb various PFAS molecules from their surroundings. When nine of these ...
New research has for the first time tracked ice shelf, sea ice and ocean swell wave conditions over multiple years in the lead-ups to three large-scale iceberg ‘calving’ events in Antarctica, revealing common patterns.
Published in Nature Geoscience, the study, led by the Universities of Melbourne and Adelaide, found long periods of sea ice loss surrounding the ice shelves in the six to 18 months prior to calving, as well as the collapse of the ‘landfast’ sea ice attached to the ice shelves only weeks prior to the calving events.
University of Melbourne Professor Luke Bennetts explained that the researchers ...
DURHAM, N.C. -- Any high school reunion is a sharp reminder that some people age more gracefully than others. Some enter their older years still physically spry and mentally sharp. Others start feeling frail or forgetful much earlier in life than expected.
“The way we age as we get older is quite distinct from how many times we’ve traveled around the sun,” said Ahmad Hariri, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
Now, scientists at Duke, Harvard and the University of Otago in New Zealand have ...
Bottom Line: Uterine cancer incidence and mortality rates are projected to increase significantly over the next three decades in the United States, with incidence-based mortality expected to be nearly three times higher in Black women compared with white women by 2050.
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Author: Jason D. Wright, MD, chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Columbia University
Background: ...
Previously described as playing astronomical ‘spot the difference,’ Kilonova Seekers asks the public to compare the latest images of a section of night sky to an image of the same section of space taken on previous nights. Their goal – to spot new stars or significant changes in light intensity that may indicate that something remarkable has happened in space.
Published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the project has announced its first published major discovery – a bright exploding star.
The object underwent an extreme brightening (increasing ...
Ann Arbor, July 1, 2025 - Novel research has revealed that adolescent vaping of current delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) has increased between 2021 and 2023. Also, adolescents are increasingly unsure about the substances they vaped in their e-cigarettes. A new study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, sheds light on this alarming trend and contributes to informing evidence-based public health policies and harm reduction strategies aimed at protecting ...
Embargo Tuesday 1st July 2025 06:00AM BST
Today, just over 100 days after the launch into production of the world first openly available 24/7 operational AI forecast model AIFS-Single, ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) is unveiling the first ensemble model using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. The new model, called AIFS ENS, will be available as open source to the user community over the coming weeks.
The new ensemble model outperforms state-of-the-art physics-based models for many measures, including surface temperature, with gains of up to 20%. At ...
DAVIS, California, USA, 1 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Innovators & Ideas interview, Dr. Danielle Beckman reveals how her passion for microscopy has evolved into a mission to understand viral impacts on brain health, offering hope for patients suffering from post-viral neurological symptoms.
From Rio to Revolutionary Research
Dr. Beckman's journey from aspiring writer in Rio de Janeiro to leading neurovirology researcher exemplifies scientific determination. Her journey began to change during an undergraduate physiology course where she discovered her fascination with the brain. "I vividly remember that class and how fascinated I became with the brain," ...
Discovering relatedness outside of a topical issue helps diverse groups to overcome differences and develop action for social change. The Kobe University addition to educational theory offers a framework to analyze and promote intersectional learning.
To achieve social change in a fragmented modern society, individuals from diverse backgrounds need to join together and develop a common plan for action. This is important especially for education related to social change, where groups of varying involvement in a particular issue, e.g., learners and teachers, interact in a structured setting. Current educational theories fall short of offering a framework of how such cultural differences ...
