Dogs still do resemble their owners

Effect of personality traits on matching dolls and their makers

Studies have shown that possessions such as cars and dogs resemble their owners, and products such as dolls resemble their makers even when students make them. We conducted three experiments to examine which part of the dolls resembled their makers. The results demonstrated that people match dolls to their makers when their eye regions were masked (Experiment 1), and the matching is possible even with the back views of the dolls (Experiment 2). These results may indicate people match dolls to their makers based on resemblances other than faces. Experiment 3 demonstrated that no effect of resemblance in personality traits was observed when dolls' faces were visible. However, the resemblance of personality traits assumed by the dolls and their makers play an important role in the matching judgment when dolls' faces were invisible (because of back views).

Do Dolls Resemble Their Makers?

Many often say that people resemble their pets or that the faces of manga characters and Buddha statues resemble those of their artists. Previous studies demonstrated that participants could match dogs with their owners, suggesting that pets resemble their owners. Other studies also demonstrated that people can match personal belongings, including inanimate objects, to their owners. However, it is unknown whether people tend to make objects that resemble themselves. In this study, we examined whether people tend to make objects that resemble themselves with dolls made of cloth as stimuli. The results demonstrated that people tend to project themselves into dolls, even in the case of amateur college students. The mere exposure effect or the algorithm "self seeks like" may be at play in not only people's selection of pets but also their making of objects.

Stated and revealed preferences in companion animal choice

Humans often say they prefer certain attributes and trait levels and yet choose options inconsistent with those preferences, a phenomenon known as the stated-revealed preference gap. In this article, we compare preferences and choices in the decision to adopt a dog, a social-choice problem that is largely one-sided. We used existing and newly gathered field data about the dog adoption process to study how people make their choices of companion animals and how those choices can be improved. We found that in the real-world choice of dogs within an animal shelter, individuals generally showed a large amount of overlap between their stated preferences and their ratings of the traits of their chosen dog. However, there was little relationship between an adopter's perceptions of their chosen dog's behavioral traits and third-party in-shelter behavior evaluations of the same dogs, suggesting that it is difficult to predict which dogs will satisfy an adopter's preferences. We also tested which commonly collected factors impact how quickly dogs are adopted from animal shelters. Overall, this work provides insight into the process of combining experimentally collected data and big data to elucidate choice behavior.

Why do people buy dogs with potential welfare problems related to extreme conformation and inherited disease? A representative study of Danish owners of four small dog breeds

A number of dog breeds suffer from welfare problems due to extreme phenotypes and high levels of inherited diseases but the popularity of such breeds is not declining. Using a survey of owners of two popular breeds with extreme physical features (French Bulldog and Chihuahua), one with a high load of inherited diseases not directly related to conformation (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel), and one representing the same size range but without extreme conformation and with the same level of disease as the overall dog population (Cairn Terrier), we investigated this seeming paradox. We examined planning and motivational factors behind acquisition of the dogs, and whether levels of experienced health and behavior problems were associated with the quality of the owner-dog relationship and the intention to re-procure a dog of the same breed. Owners of each of the four breeds (750/breed) were randomly drawn from a nationwide Danish dog registry and invited to participate. Of these, 911 responded, giving a final sample of 846. There were clear differences between owners of the four breeds with respect to degree of planning prior to purchase, with owners of Chihuahuas exhibiting less. Motivations behind choice of dog were also different. Health and other breed attributes were more important to owners of Cairn Terriers, whereas the dog’s personality was reported to be more important for owners of French Bulldogs and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels but less important for Chihuahua owners. Higher levels of health and behavior problems were positively associated with a closer owner-dog relationship for owners of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and Chihuahuas but, for owners of French Bulldogs, high levels of problems were negatively associated with an intention to procure the same breed again. In light of these findings, it appears less paradoxical that people continue to buy dogs with welfare problems.

Not Only Dogs Resemble Their Owners, Cars Do, Too

Research has found that raters are able to match dogs with their owners at above-chance rates, even with controls for size or hairiness ( Roy & Christenfeld, 2004 ). This suggests that dogs, to some extent, resemble their owners. We conducted three studies (with 160, 130, and 201 raters) and showed that this resemblance effect generalizes to cars (sets of one picture of the front view of a car and frontal headshots of six possible owners). Specifically, raters were better than chance at matching car owners to front views of their cars, but not to side or back views of their cars. Alternative explanations for this novel effect (e.g., sex stereotypes related to car type or masculine vs. feminine car looks) were successively ruled out. Furthermore, not only did cars resemble their owners, but cars also resembled the owners’ dogs (when they were purebreds). This suggests that matching owners to their cars cannot entirely be explained by stereotypes. In addition, facial features may account for the reported effect.

People Believe That They Are Prototypically Good or Bad

People have been shown to view their beliefs as being prototypical (modal) but their abilities as (falsely) unique (above or below average). It is possible that these two viewpoints - self as prototypical and self as unique - can be reconciled. If the distribution of ability for a given skill is skewed such that many others have high (low) ability and few others have low (high) ability, it is possible that a majority of peoples' self-assessments can be above (below) average. Participants in 5 studies demonstrated an understanding that various skills have skewed ability distributions and their self-assessments were related to distribution shape: high when negatively skewed and low when positively skewed. Further, participants tended to place themselves near the mode of their perceived skill distribution. Participants were most likely to think that they were good at skills for which they thought that most others were also good.

Influence of Names on Career Choices in Medicine

AbstractThree studies showed that medical doctors and lawyers were disproportionately more likely to have surnames that resembled their professions. A fourth study showed that, for doctors, this influence extended to the type of medicine they practiced. Study 1 found that people with the surname "Doctor" were more likely to be doctors than lawyers, whereas those with the surname "Lawyer" were more likely to be lawyers. Studies 2 and 3 broadened this finding by comparing doctors and lawyers whose first or last names began with three-letter combinations representative of their professions, for example, "doc," "law," and likewise found a significant relationship between name and profession. Study 4 found that the initial letters of physicians' last names were significantly related to their subspecialty, for example, Raymonds were more likely to be radiologists than dermatologists. These results provide further evidence names influence medical career choices.

Another Look at “Look-Alikes”

Popular belief and recent findings suggest that dogs look like their owner - but are such pairs necessarily look-alikes or do we recognize their affiliation based on other information? We asked judges to match automobiles with their owners. They were able to identify the pairs above chance. The correlational analyses of actual information about owners' and automobiles' characteristics and their estimations suggest that stereotypes with respect to external clues about the owner and the automobiles were available to judges. People's appearance and certain characteristics of their possessions apparently carry information beyond physiognomic resemblance and these clues help to make inferences about their affiliation. The different mechanisms that judges might use to make connections between people and their cars are discussed.