Abstract Background : Dogs are the most common companion animal in the United Kingdom, and also the most well-researched. Despite this prevalence and research focus, little is known about dog-related self-expansion (e.g., the process of incorporating new, positive content into one’s self-identity), including self-expansion behaviors (e.g., highly self-expanding activities) and self-expansion perceptions (e.g., the belief that a relationship is self-expanding), what activities are most self-expanding for dog guardians, and how these activities contribute to dog guardian mental well-being and human-dog relational outcomes. Methods : This study aimed to explore these variables in a sample of 192 dog guardians in the United Kingdom. Participants provided information about the activities they had engaged in with their dogs and how self-expanding these activities were; and completed measures of anxiety, depression, loneliness, human-dog compatibility, satisfaction with the human-dog relationship, and dog relinquishment intentions. Results : We found that the more common an activity was, the less self-expanding participants perceived that activity to be, aligning with self-expansion theory. We also found that higher self-expansion activity ratings, regardless of whether the activities were recent (e.g., past 2 weeks) or had occurred at any time within the human-dog relationship, were associated with higher levels of self-expansion perceptions. In turn, self-expansion perceptions were a significant positive predictor of human-dog compatibility and satisfaction with the human-dog relationship, and a significant negative predictor of depression symptoms. Self-expansion perceptions did not significantly predict relinquishment intentions, anxiety, or loneliness. Cross-sectional path mediation models revealed that self-expansion perceptions mediated the relationships between activities’ self-expansion ratings (both recent or anytime in the human-dog relationship) and human-dog compatibility and human-dog relationship satisfaction; but not depression. Conclusions : These findings indicate that both self-expanding behaviors and self-expansion perceptions play an important but overlooked role in the human-dog relationship, with self-expansion behaviors predicting self-expansion perceptions, which, in turn, play a role in human mental health and the human-dog relationship.
Ellis et al. (Mon,) studied this question.