Lecture 6 Animals Flashcards
What are assist animals used for?
Vision, hearing, mobility, autism, psychiatric illness, epilepsy, diabetes
What benefits are given from assistant animals?
Improvements in:
- Companionship
- Emotional support
- Quality of life
- independence
- Self-esteem
- Mental health
- community participation
- Economic engagement
- Perceived physical safety
- Family relationships
what are some disadvantage to assistant animals?
- Time and financial cost
- Lack of public awareness around AA
- Undesirable animal behaviour
- invisible illness now visible
What are most human-animal relationships characterised by?
exploitation (food production, lab rate, entertainment..etc)
What areas of health do pets benefit?
- physical health
- Mental health
- Emotional Stability
- Social support
Problems with owning pets
- very costly
- restrictions on activities (cant go on long trips without them)
- emotional distress when a pet passes away
- emotional distress when pet has behavioural problems
- Some pets harm people (some pass on diseases)
Why do we want/have pets?
- Social parasite theory (from cuteness)
- Social Deficits theory
- Positive Psychology
What is Social parasitism ?
-taking advantage of owners belief that they are responsible for the pet, and benefiting from this. (depending on the labour provided by people). Occurs from them being ‘cute’.
What are the issues against cuteness?
- Some people don’t care about babies but loves their pets
- There are cute inanimate objects, but we don’t feel the same affection for it
- Some people have pets that aren’t cute
Social deficits theory
-People who have pets do so because they are emotionally, psychologically and socially incapable of having normal human relationships
What is Positive Psychology
scientific investigation of factors and processes that facilitate a worthwhile life - one that is engaging and purposeful
What are the 5 key components of positive psychology
- Pleasure
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning
- Achievement
