Social media is always awash in pet videos and images, but since the COVID lockdowns it seems as though there is even more pet content to be found online as cats invade video conferences and dogs beg for even more walks. There are sometimes even calls in spaces such as Twitter for people to share pet images when someone’s having a bad day. The connection between pets and wellness is one of the focuses of this episode of Stats and Stories, with guest Allen McConnell.

Allen McConnell is University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Miami University. His research examines how relationships with family and pets affect health and well-being, how people decode others’ nonverbal displays, and how self-nature representations influence pro-environmental action with this work supported over the years by National Institutes of Health (NICHD and NIMH) and National Science Foundation grants. His research has been featured in a variety of popular press outlets such as ESPN, CBC, CNN, BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Atlantic Monthly, and Cosmopolitan. He has served as Editor in Chief of Social Psychological and Personality Science, Associate Editor of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and President of the Midwestern Psychological Association and of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. His Social Self blog at Psychology Today receives more than 10K unique views per post.

How did you start studying pets? (1:25)

Ways pets improve health (3:20)

How do you do control groups when studying pet ownership? (5:40)

What about the pets that cause stress? (8:15)

Pets relationship with media (9:50)

How does this fit into social/positive psychology? (12:12)

How do you feel about the reporting around your work? (13:40)

Divisions in pet ownership and how people view pets (16:10)

Is there data like this around the world? (19:47)

Nature’s impact on mental health (21:20)