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The literature on the relationship of companion animals and children shows only a weak effect of human-animal bonding on child development. The use of “pet ownership” or cohabitation rather than the relationship or interaction between the child and the animal as a measure of bonding appears to be a serious and limiting deficiency, which impaired the empirical evidence concerning the development and effects of human-animal bonding. The Companion Animal Bonding Scale is an 8-item behavioral scale describing the extent of child-animal activities. The scale was administered by questionnaire with a childhood focus and a contemporary focus to 121 high school and college students. The Cronbach alpha estimates of internal reliability were 0.82 and 0.77, respectively. Construct validity was indicated by significant correlations between scores on the Pet Attitude Scale and the childhood and contemporary bonding scale of .39 and .40, respectively.
Poresky et al. (Mon,) studied this question.