Biophobia and Pet Ownership: Can Having a Pet Mitigate Our Fear and Aversion Towards Nature?

Biophobia, which we defined as fear, disgust, or aversion toward natural environments or organisms, has received little empirical attention when compared to biophilia, despite its implications for human and planetary wellbeing. This mixed-methods study explores the relationship between pet ownership, biophobia, and nature connectedness among 373 English- speaking adults. Quantitative findings reveal that (M = 26.4) exhibit significantly lower levels of biophobia than non-pet owners (M = 30.1; U = 5179, Z = -2.95, p = .002, R = 0.27), although no significant differences in nature connectedness were found across pet ownership (U = 7033, Z = 0.31, p = .759). A small but significant negative correlation correlation (r = -0.26, p < .001)* was observed between biophobia and nature connectedness. Qualitative analysis further highlights that pet owners tend to report fear and aversion related mostly around human threats and damage when in natural settings, while non-pet owners more frequently express aversion toward natural stimuli such as insects, mud, and wild animals. These findings support the “pets as ambassadors” hypothesis and suggest that pet ownership may serve as a factor mitigating biophobia. However, the absence of an association between pet ownership and nature connectedness underscores the need for targeted interventions to foster deeper ecological relationships. Implications for future research and practical applications in education and conservation are discussed.