personality-differences-between-dog-and-cat-owners 2

Article reproduced by kind permission of Stanley Coren, PhD, DSc, FRSC See more at Stanley’s blog ‘Canine Corner’.

Part 2

   Gosling’s recent study seems to confirm the (1)___________ of some research that I did for my book “Why We Love The Dogs We Do.” I used a different personality measure, namely the Interpersonal Adjective Scale, because I was (2)___________ interested in items reflecting social interactions and social tendencies. It gives scores on four scales, extroversion, dominance, trust and (3)___________ (which is close to agreeableness on Gosling’s measure).

   My study involved 6,149 people, aged 16 to 94. I attempted to get as many dog owners as I could, so this (4)___________ included 3,362 dog owners, but also, 1,223 people who only owned cats and 1,564 people that owned neither a cat nor a dog.

   My results showed that people who owned only cats seemed to be (5)___________ different than dog owners or people who owned both dogs and cats in terms of their personalities. People who own both dogs and cats seem to be much like people who own only dogs. You should keep this in mind, since from here on, at least for the (6)___________ of this discussion, when I mention a cat owner I mean someone who lives only with a cat, while when I mention dog owners I will mean a person who owns a dog or both a dog and a cat.

   According to my data, cat owners were one third more likely to live alone than dog owners and twice as likely to live in an apartment or flat. Being married, living in a house, and having children living in the home, are all (7)___________ that are more likely for dog owners than cat owners. A single woman was the most likely individual to have a cat. Of the people who grew up in a house with cats as pets, 47 percent were likely to have cats today, while only 11 percent of people whose (8)___________ years were spent in a house with a dog have only a cat as a pet.

   Turning to the personality profile of the person who owns only cats, we find a reasonable (9)___________ with Gosling’s recent findings. To begin with we find we find that people who own only cats tend to be relatively introverted (low on extroversion) and also reasonably cool (low in warmth or agreeableness) which is the (10)___________ confirmed by the more recent data.

Part 3

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