Dogs and their Owners Tend to Look Alike
A British Study Finds People Resemble their Pets
Apr 8, 2009
Lance Workman is the head of psychology department at Bath Spa University in the United Kingdom. He has a particular interest in evolutionary psychology. In April 2009, he presented a paper at the annual meeting of the British Psychological Society on a study he and Charis Hunter did on dogs and their owners.
Dog Personalities not Like Owners’
Writing in The Daily Mail on 3 April 2009, Fiona Macrae reported that Dr. Workman and his colleagues were “inspired by studies which have shown that dog lovers are more outgoing than cat lovers, the Bath Spa University researchers at first set out to see if dogs and their masters have similar personalities.”
The answer to that question came back negative; there is no evidence that the personalities of dog owners resemble those of their pets.
In her story entitled “We’re not barking mad...we really DO look like our dogs,” Ms. Macrae continued, “Not to be put off, the researchers then asked a group of people who didn’t own dogs to look at pictures of the dog owners and guess which of the three breeds they had.”
Matches Better than Chance
A British Psychological Society news release explains how the study was conducted: “A group of 70 people who do not own a dog were asked to match photos of 41 dog owners to three possible breeds - Labrador, poodle, or Staffordshire bull terrier. Owners were correctly matched to their breed of dog above the level of chance.
“Dr. Lance Workman said: ‘This suggests that certain breeds of dogs are associated with particular kinds of people. The non dog owners used stereotypes to match the dogs to their owners. These stereotypes persisted into judgements of the dog owners’ personalities: non dog owners considered the owners of each breed to share certain personality traits.”
The test subjects made the correct matches 60% of the time, whereas a purely random selection would come up with a 50:50 result.
Self-Selecting of Breeds
Dr. Workman thinks there might just be simple logic at work. He told The Daily Mail, “If you are of a robust build, you probably get a robust-built dog because you’d want to get lots of exercise.
“If you are slight, you might be more likely to have a poodle because you think it needs less exercise.”
Do people behave like their pooches as well? Probably not. Dr. Workman adds, “It is quite superficial and doesn’t translate to personality, so the idea of pets being like their owners is only skin deep.”
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