What Does Your Dog Say About You?

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Veterinary
Article Date: 10 Apr 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Yes, you can match a dog to its owner. But the match is only skin deep. This is the finding of a study presented at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in Brighton.

In the study, carried out by Charis Hunter and Dr Lance Workman at Bath Spa University, a group of 70 people who do not own a dog were asked to match photos of 41 dog owners to three possible breeds - labrador, poodle or Staffordshire bull terrier. Owners were correctly matched to their breed of dog above the level of chance.

Dr Lance Workman said: "This suggests that certain breeds of dogs are associated with particular kinds of people. The non dog owners used stereotypes to match the dogs to their owners. These stereotypes persisted into judgements of the dog owners' personalities: non dog owners considered the owners of each breed to share certain personality traits.

"But when we tested the dog owners' personalities, we found no strong links between any particular personality trait and choice of dog breed, so any shared qualities are only skin deep."

Source
British Psychological Society

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