Today the psychology of human-animal interaction is a rapidly developing field of psychological research in western countries. In Russia there are some isolated works on psychological aspects of interspecies communication between humans and animals but these have not formed a separate research field so far. In order to analyse the causes of the ‘pet relationships’ phenomenon at the levels of needs and personality spheres, we conducted a comparative study of pet owners (n=44) and people who have no pets (n=39). The attached pet owners demonstrated a need for subjectification of the animal and orientation to a definite type of communication. Presentation of the results of this study to the Russian psychological community revealed the problem of acute and active polarization of the scholars regarding the assessment modus of relevance and importance of human–animal studies. Such a reaction could be determined by the level of an individual’s emotional and personal maturity rather than by theoretical or methodological issues.
Download files
Citation rules
No. 2 (2016)
Published: 2016-12-24
10.31261/ZOOPHILOLOGICA
English
Русский
Język Polski