Personification as the social emotional behaviors in human and animal interactions

Abstract

This study surveys dairy farmers' ways of raising, sense of animal welfare, and emotional impressions on their cows, and discusses their personification to livestock in contrast with that to companion animals. The farmers have professional knowledge and skills to feed and handle the cows. They get a living from keeping cows, considering the cost and benefit. This economy-based view sometimes leads to the desertion of treatment on disordered livestock. Companion animal owners usually keep their animals with no such economy-based but emotion-based view. Farmers' “employer-employee” relationship to their cows would interfere with the personification attitudes. This author compared the attitudes of 187 dairy farmers and 218 collage students, reveals the dairy farmers show more sensitivity to animal welfare and more favorable impression and stronger personification, such as “child-like” and “family-like” views. Thus emotion-based attitudes and the personification would be caused in any situations with human-animal interactions, regardless of the roles and the professional knowledge of animals. As a calming effect of handling for experimental animals and decreased escape distance on intimately reared cows show, animals interacted with human also have the emotion-based affection or emotional bond.View full abstract