WHY DO PEOPLE LOVE THEIR PETS

The evidence that people form strong attachments with their pets is br iefly reviewed before identifying the characteristics of such relation ships, which include pets being a source of security as well as the ob jects of caregiving. In evolutionary terms, pet ownership poses a prob lem, since attachment and devoting resources to another species are, i n theory, fitness-reducing. Three attempts to account for pet keeping are discussed, as are the problems with these views. Pet keeping is pl aced into the context of other forms of interspecific associations. Fr om this, an alternative Darwinian explanation is proposed: pets are vi ewed as manipulating human responses that had evolved to facilitate hu man relationships, primarily (but not exclusively) those between paren t and child. The precise mechanisms that enable pets to elicit caregiv ing from humans are elaborated. They involve features that provide the initial attraction, such as neotenous characteristics, and those that enable the human owner to derive continuing satisfaction from interac ting with the pet, such as the attribution of mental processes to huma n-like organisms. These mechanisms can, in some circumstances, cause p et owners to derive more satisfaction from their pet relationship than those with humans, because they supply a type of unconditional relati onship that is usually absent from those with other human beings. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.