They are good for us, apparently. From the immune system to the health benefits to the souls, animals make us lead happier lives, or so the research goes.
One Harvard study boldly claims that “pet owners are less likely to die, [reducing] a person’s mortality rate by 24 percent”. So in the interests of becoming 24 percent more immortal, opening your home to a non-human co-habitant seems to be the way forward.
Just speak to any pet owner you know.
Some of them, like me, might shout at their non-human companions from time to time, for barking at the doorbell as if the axeiest of murderers was stood upon the doorstep, instead of the beleaguered Fresh Hippo delivery person.
Some of them might throw their hands up in despair when their cat awakens them in the dead of night, three millimetres from their face, meowing plaintively for meal number 17 of whatever schedule it is that compels Pushkins to eat ceaselessly. Some even might bemoan the hair, the stench or the chaos that abounds when sharing their home with impulsive, delightful energy bombs.
But I have yet to meet a pet owner who didn’t adore their companion to the limits of acceptability.
There are several reasons for this; first and foremost because little creatures, and their foibles are ineffably cute, even if they are effably annoying at times. More interesting, however, are the studies that support the humorous observations that pet owners often look like their furry friends.
We all know someone whose beloved pooch is the head cut off them, even if we haven’t consciously thought it until now.
This is known as the mere exposure effect, which states that humans have a sub-conscious predisposition for a stimulus as result of a repeated exposure. Sort of like Stockholm Syndrome, but for pets, or anything else.
Identified in 1968 by Robert B. Zajonc, the mere-exposure effect states that because we are so used to seeing our own reflection, our choice of pets is therefore influenced by our very visage.
Inception Pet-cion. Check out David Bowie and Max, Michelle Obama and Bo, or Ryan Gosling (a.k.a. Ken) and his dearly-departed George.
More broadly, it means that as a species, we are more disposed to the familiar, in whatever circumstances, than the novel. I lived for 3 entire years in Spain without trying a morsel of octopus, which is downright laughable now considering the showdowns there this summer whenever a plate of delicious, yummy tentacles appeared before us. Harsh words were said. We couldn’t go back to the very first place we ordered it after nearly 4 long years. I’m sure there were whispers around the village. Repeated exposure to the gelatinous, tender tentacles explains the frenzy with which we devoured kilos of our cephalopod friends this summer.
No further proof is needed in my mind.
But in case you are still curious, here’s the lowdown from the psychology world. The mere exposure effect, whilst occurring because of repeated, well, exposure, to a stimulus, may not even be conscious.
It also does not rely on any positive reward or outcome, so simply more cognition, on any level, of a stimulus, is enough to create a predisposition in the mind of the beholder.
So although I may have spent the first 29 exposures to Galician Octopus in a state of WT… UGGGHHHHH, somewhere in the machinations of my mind, the mere exposure effect was hatching.
Zajonc had participants read foreign words aloud, with varying repetitions, and later rate them for connotative meaning. Participants consistently voted the words that had been repeated the most as the highest in terms of positive connotation. This finding seems to apply equally across the fields of advertising, entertainment, restaurant menus, life partners and pets. And everything else in between.
Perceptual fluency explains this urge to eschew the unknown, hence the burger and pizza appearance on many menus of otherwise-specialty restaurants. It’s a very much “better the devil you know” scenario. If you’ve ever rewatched a series or movie, or re-read a book instead of embarking upon a new cognitive adventure, the mere exposure effect may be subtly guiding your radar. The reduced uncertainty hinges upon the Darwinian imperative to distrust that which is new or unknown.
And in fairness, with good reason. If a person has never gobbled down a plate of tentacles before, a reasonable amount of aversion is to be expected.
That said, the fact that my pets might look like me because I like the cut of their jib, ergo, my own jib, still remains puzzling, more so because two of them are chihuahuas and one best resembles an Irish Wolfhound with the legs of a terrier. Where to even begin?
Is it their rabid intent to bark the fear of dog into visitors? Their desire to sleep in the sun? The urge to eat anything and everything forbidden? Or do I, like Bowie and Obama, and Gosling, actually look like my pets? Maybe I do have the subtle air of a Mexican ratter, or a mongrel Irish Terrier adorable doofus. Maybe I look like an incompetent assassin like my cat, the noisiest creature to ever spawn on this great earth.
Or maybe the mere exposure effect in our menagerie exerts itself more on the conceptual side in this case. Our little furry friends were all lost, without a safe place to be themselves. Our first and most vocal member of our furry family wasn’t even able to stand up when we brought her home. She keeled over and then slept for so long we quite reasonably thought she had died. Now, 5 years later, we have affectionately nicknamed her, “Chunk”, and if she ever falls over, it’s from overindulgence.
We live in a city of flux, elastic in its permanence. There are always furry friends who need a safe place to be. Every single time my children came home with some scrawny waif to foster, I said absolutely, most definitely no. And yet here we are. Three dogs, one cat, very nearly two fostered kittens. When the Barkapocalypse occurs, I curse their souls for all eternity.
But like my tentacled delicacy, repeated exposure means that most certainly I would stab you with a toothpick for looking crossways at them.
