Are Dogs or Cats Better at Curing Loneliness?

Source: Katie Cook (CC BY 2.0)

There is an ongoing demographic shift in our society—specifically, the proportion of older individuals is rising and expected to increase substantially in future decades. For example, in North America, the number of people aged 65 years or older now outnumbers the number of individuals aged 14 years or less.

One important difference in this older population is that it contains a considerable number of people who are living alone. They are widowed, divorced, or are married but living separated from their spouse—or simply single. What is important here is that typically, these older people tend to stay single and continue to live alone. There is a lot of data which shows that people living without a partner (especially in old age) are at risk for loneliness, social isolation, and clinical levels of depression.

A number of psychologists have offered data and theories that suggest that there is a human need to be attached to somebody, to maintain social relationships, and fulfill our personal need for a sense of belonging. It has often been suggested that, in the absence of human companionship, having a pet might provide an important source of social support, and might be enough to fend off these feelings of loneliness and isolation. There have been a few studies which provided data which suggested that this is the case, but they have been rather small scale, and not based on nationally representative samples.

However, there are other issues related to this problem which need to be considered as well. The most popular companion animals are dogs and cats—and when it comes to providing social support, there is a question as to whether cats and dogs provide an equivalent benefit. This is important because, generally speaking, cats are easier to keep, require less maintenance, and are generally smaller than dogs, all of which could be considerations for older individuals living in apartments or senior's complexes.

A new study has just come out of Germany which addresses the issue of whether cats and dogs have the same effect in warding off loneliness among seniors. The research is by André Hajek and Hans-Helmut König at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, in Hamburg, Germany. The data came from the fifth wave of the German Aging Survey which began collecting data in 1996. It is an ongoing survey of German community-dwelling individuals aged 40 years or more. Because the focus of this particular study was for seniors living without a partner, the researchers restricted their analysis to individuals older than 65 years who were living alone because their spouse was deceased, they were divorced or separated, or just by themselves. That resulted in a test group of 1,160 individuals.

To measure their sense of social isolation, the participants in the study were asked to rate the truthfulness of various statements such as "I feel like I do not really belong to society" or "I feel that I am left out." Feelings of loneliness were measured by determining how well statements like "I miss having people around among whom I feel comfortable" or "I miss emotional security and warmth" seemed to apply to each participant.

Next, the sample was divided up according to pet ownership. There were three main groups: those with no pets, those who lived with dogs, and those who lived with cats. The researchers used a set of complex regression analyses to describe their data; however, the main outcomes are easy to understand.

When it comes to feelings of social isolation, individuals who do not own pets and those who owned cats are found to be the most socially isolated. Furthermore, there appears to be no psychological benefit provided by cat ownership. However, looking at the full set of participants, it turns out that living with a dog is a good thing. The researchers found that dog ownership does provide a significant reduction in the sense of social isolation when compared to those who do not own pets or only have cats. If you further analyze these results, you find that the effects are much stronger among women than among men.

When you look at the results for feelings of loneliness, it turns out that the loneliest people are individuals who do not own pets and, just as in the case of social isolation, the researchers found that simply owning a cat does not reduce these feelings. Dog ownership, however, does decrease feelings of loneliness significantly in women, although only marginally for men. The researchers suggest that this sex difference comes into play because in Germany, where the study was conducted, older men generally have more formal and extensive social supports, which means that human contact is available and the pet is not leaned upon as much to provide psychological comfort.

So, to summarize the findings, it appears that having a dog as a pet can reduce the sense of social isolation and loneliness in seniors who are living without the companionship of another human being—while having a pet cat does not appear to provide the same benefits.

Why a dog could lessen the feelings of social isolation and loneliness when a cat may not become very clear to me this morning. I was out walking my younger dog when I ran into another retired professor who lives in my neighborhood. He was walking his schnauzer. We stopped and chatted for a few minutes, and he brought me up to date on some gossip about matters at the university. I, in turn, provided a bit of news to him about one of our mutual friends.

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For that brief moment at least, I felt fully plugged into society and my social environment. As we parted and I headed for home, it dawned upon me that if my only pet had been a cat, that conversation would never have occurred. The simple needs of a dog for exercise force a senior (like me) to get out of the house—and thus provides the opportunity for social encounters and interactions. Cats simply do not move you out of the door where you can make contact with the rest of the world.

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