We always knew it but now it’s official – pet owners have rose-tinted views of their animals. People even become defensive on behalf of a triangle if told it’s “theirs”.
Pet owners notoriously make excuses for their own animal’s bad behaviour while condemning that of others. They are also more likely to anthropomorphise their own animal’s behaviour, saying “my dog wants to cheer me up”, for instance.
To explore this, a team led by social psychologist Sara Kiesler from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, gave 82 university staff and students a Siamese fighting fish to look after for two weeks.…
