Dogs vs. Cats: Psychologists Found Out Who Lifts Mood More and Who Can Psychologically Harm the Owner

Collage by Nasha Niva

The idea that animals heal nerves is very popular. However, scientists from the Netherlands and Belgium decided to test this belief not in laboratory conditions, but in real life. The results of their study, published in the authoritative journal Frontiers in Psychology, overturn our perceptions.

To obtain the most accurate data, the researchers abandoned traditional surveys where people are asked to recall the past. Instead, they installed a special program on the smartphones of 188 dog and cat owners.

For five days, the program suddenly prompted participants up to 10 times a day to report their mood, stress level, and whether they were interacting with their pet at that moment. This approach allowed them to collect almost 8,000 real-time reports and track genuine, not fabricated, emotions.

Initially, the results confirmed what we already knew: cats and dogs are indeed capable of improving mood. When people simply spent time with their animals in a normal setting, their positive emotions increased, and negative ones decreased.

Moreover, contrary to the popular stereotype about the greater sociality and emotionality of dogs, representatives of both species brought equal joy to their owners.

But this idyll changed radically when it came to people's reactions to stressful events.

It turned out that neither dogs nor cats actually work as a "shield against stress". When a person faced troubles, active interaction with the animal did not mitigate the emotional blow in any way.

Moreover, scientists discovered a very unexpected feline paradox: the more people interacted with their cat precisely during a stressful situation, the stronger their negative emotions became. Interaction with cats not only didn't help, it literally amplified anxiety and stress, although no such tendency was observed among dog owners at all.

Why does this happen? Researchers suggest that it's all about different behavioral styles. Cats usually stay unobtrusively in the house, which is perfectly suited for a normal day. But this may not correspond at all to the level of support a person needs in a state of acute stress.

In psychology, this is called "support deterioration" — when help does not match the situation, it starts to annoy and only worsens the condition.

So next time you have a very bad day, it might be better to let your cat sleep peacefully in a corner and deal with things yourself, rather than expecting a quick anti-stress effect from it.

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