Loneliness and animal assisted therapy

The many people online offering “cures” or “spells” to counter loneliness tend to overlook one obvious and happy remedy: pets. Research consistently shows that “animal assisted therapy” (ie., interacting with a cat or dog for about an hour) consistently lowers loneliness rates. In one study, a visit from a cat or dog lowered UCLA Loneliness Scale scores by about 10 points—that is, the visit left the person with an average, rather than a high, loneliness score.

Almost everyone in the loneliness research community agrees that animal assisted therapy lowers loneliness scores. The dispute tends to centre around why the scores drop. Some people say that it has nothing to do with the animals (and that lonely people are really responding to visits from the animals’ handlers). Others say that the animals are lowering loneliness rates through a process known as anthropomorphism, in which the lonely individual attributes human-like qualities to the pet, and so mentally tricks themselves into thinking they’re interacting with another person.

I fall into a third camp. I think animals lower loneliness scores because they’re animals. Not because of a handler, not because of some weird tendency towards anthropomorphism. Animals leave us feeling less lonely because (if you’re good to them!) they offer a source of connection and companionship in themselves.