The Role of Pet Attachment, Emotion Regulation and Perceived Parental Practices in Adults’ Psychological Well-Being. A Pilot Study

Psychological well-being is widely regarded as a robust indicator and precursor of mental health. It is shaped by personal (e.g., emotion regulation strategies) and interpersonal factors, as well as life experiences encountered during development (e.g., used parental practices, emotional climate in the family, quality of social ties, etc.). Supportive parenting in childhood promotes better life-long mental health, whereas controlling or neglectful parenting practices increase vulnerability. Adequate attachment to pets may buffer unmet needs of belonging and foster resilience. The major objective of the present pilot study was to investigate the relationship and explicative power in adult psychological well-being of remembered early parental practices, pet-related variables (childhood desire for pet, current pet ownership) and adult psychological mechanisms, such as cognitive emotion regulation strategies and current attachment to pets. A total of 196 female participants were included in the study and were assessed along the following dimensions: psychological well-being, remembered parental practices, cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERQ), current pet attachment, childhood desire to have pets, current pet ownership. We conducted three 2x2x2 ANCOVAs examining the dichotomized version (low vs. high) of each of the three remembered parental practices (warmth, rejection, overprotection), childhood desire to have pets (desired and owned vs. desired and not owned), and current pet ownership (yes-no), with emotion regulation strategies and current pet attachment entered as covariates, on psychological well-being. Across the tested models, adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies emerged as the most powerful predictors of adult psychological well-being. We also found that pets may function as significant emotional resources, especially for those participants who remember to have experienced high levels of parental rejection in childhood. The results of this study may have valorous theoretical and practical implications by shedding further light on the relative importance of distal (remembered parental practices) and proximal factors (emotion regulation strategies, current pet ownership) in predicting psychological well-being. Keywords: psychological well-being, parental practices, emotion regulation, pet ownership, pet attachment