inc.com The Right Way to Pet a Dog, According to Science Avery Miles 5–7 minutes
Dogs might not be everyone’s cup of tea. After all, they’re so cute it’s really a distraction. And then there’s the whole poop thing. But there’s no denying that dogs are great for our emotional health. What we haven’t known—until now—is exactly why we like petting our dogs so much.
Study authors Vanessa Kaufmann, Xiaoqin Cheng, and Annett Schirmer, researchers at the University of Innsbruck, set about designing an experiment that asked the question: what is it about these interactions with our pets that might actually bring about positive outcomes for us? Isolating the Physical Touch
In psychology, stress buffering describes how supportive social contact softens a person’s physical and emotional reaction to difficult situations. This means that when someone offers you an affectionate touch, you feel protected. In one study, women who received a brief neck and shoulder massage from their partner before giving a speech showed smaller spikes in heart rate and cortisol levels than women whose partners offered only verbal support.
But while plenty of research has attempted to figure out what creates the beneficial bond with our pets, scientists have not been able to isolate physical touch as the specific mechanism behind these benefits. This is usually because owners simultaneously pet, look at, and talk to their animals.
Inc Logo
This Morning
The daily digest for entrepreneurs and business leaders
To sort this out, the Innsbruck study focused on 64, White, mostly female, European dog owners in their mid-30’s. Participants were invited to visit a university laboratory in Austria along with their dogs, which were all healthy, more than two years old, and comfortable in unfamiliar rooms.
Each participant completed two assessments that followed the same five-step sequence: a five-minute resting baseline, a 10-minute stress test, a one-minute post-stress rest, a five-minute recovery period with their dog, and a five-minute post-recovery rest. During the 10-minute stress test, participants answered rapid-fire general knowledge questions within five seconds and counted backward in fixed steps to the beat of a flashing red dot.
Participants were then told their performance was being recorded for later analysis and were monitored over a video call by a staff member who gave only critical feedback. This was to create a sense of social-evaluative stress, which is the anxiety of being negatively judged by others.
During the resting and stress phases, the researchers recorded brain activity in which they tracked two types of participants’ electrical brain rhythms—Alpha waves, which are slower in the back of the head and are usually associated with a relaxed mind and drop during stress, and Beta waves, which are faster rhythms across the front and sides of the head and are tied to alertness and mental strain. Then, they measured heart rate and heart rate variability using forearm sensors and to capture mood and recovery they used self-report scales and video cameras. Petting can be a Protective Stress Buffer
Contrary to the researchers’ initial prediction, when participants touched their dog it did not speed up their immediate recovery. Instead, the benefits of touch emerged later, acting as a protective buffer when participants faced the second stress test.
Participants who petted their dogs during the first recovery break displayed a calmer reaction during the second stress test compared to their first stress test.
But participants who were prevented from touching their dogs during the first recovery break did not exhibit these protective biological changes during their second stress test, though researchers caution that this exploratory analysis will need to be further tested.
“Our findings suggest that physical contact with a pet may reduce how strongly the body reacts to a subsequent stressful situation,” Kaufmann and Schirmer said. “Interestingly, there was no difference in how stressed participants reported feeling, suggesting that physiological buffering can occur without us necessarily being consciously aware of it.”
Petting your dog may not calm you down right away—but keep going, they’ll love it. Conditional Outcomes
While the researchers found a consistent pattern that points toward a calmer response to a stressor after participants had touched their dog, the real-world application is still unknown. Real-life stress often does not come in a controlled laboratory setting. The authors were careful to note that their findings can only reach so far.
“A next step is to understand more precisely what it is about physical contact with an animal that produces these effects,” Kaufmann and Schirmer explained. “We are interested in both bottom-up mechanisms, such as how different characteristics of touch and the resulting sensory signals contribute to stress regulation, and top-down mechanisms, such as the relationship with the animal, expectations, or the meaning of the interaction.”
This might involve taking a closer look at how people touch, for example, how humans primarily use their fingers to give pets because it might be more pleasurable for them. Another step is to test these findings across more diverse groups of people, taking into account other everyday stressors, and finally, consider the difference between interacting with one’s own pet at home against interacting with an unfamiliar animal.
Get Inc.'s free CPG newsletter, Packaged Goods, for the latest on the founders, investors, and trends reshaping consumer brands.