My autoethnography is on the complex relationship between animals and humans when they have been ostracized by their fellow peers. Based on my personal experience, when I was ostracized and ignored by my classmates as a young child, I turned to my pets at home for a stable and bonded friendship. There was no judgment and I felt completely understood by my pets even though they could not speak. My relationship with my pets felt natural and helped me feel at ease whenever it felt like the world was against me.

A research study that will be featured in my autoethnography titled “The Pet Factor – Companion Animals as a Conduit for Getting to Know People, Friendship Formation and Social Support”. This peer reviewed scholarly article’s study was meant to show how animals have been proven to be catalysts for socially inept owners to improve their social lives. They are excellent at helping their owners create and strengthen friendships, especially those who have received little attention from their peers. The three dimensions of social support the study showed that people received from their pets were: getting to know people, friendship formation,and social support networks. The four types of social support are emotional, informational, appraisal, and instrumental.

The findings were collected by means of a telephone survey of 1988 randomly selected residents throughout the United States and Australia. The participants were asked what types of pets they owned, how well they knew their neighbors, and whether their pet had helped them with any of the three dimensions of social support. The results of the study showed that the majority of the pet owners were significantly more likely to have a positive outcome socially due to meeting or sustaining relationships that were started by the pet. The pet owners that affected the greatest amount were those in Perth, Australia and San Diego and Nashville, USA. In the conclusion of this study, it was discovered that pets were the catalyst or the tangle form of social support that aided their owners to become socially capable to create and form relationships on their own with people in society. Pets improved their owners mental health as well as their social isolation. People with pets are more likely to become socially healthy individuals with healthy relationships.

This study greatly connects to my autoethnography. I, myself as a young girl, was socially inept for several years and had a difficult time making and maintaining strong relationships with my peers. It was very difficult to find similarities with those my age and even when they were found, the friendships were short lived. After I was able to acquire a pet, I noticed that I had more in common with my peers. They would start to create conversation with me and even invited me to socialize with them. As stated in the study findings, my bond with my pet gave me the emotional support that I needed to overcome my past social ineptitude to form relationships with people. However, the study did not go in depth with subjects that had been bullied. The only people interviewed had been labeled as socially awkward or had difficulty maintaining relationships. If the study had included more on bullied people it would have aligned even more with my project. The study did not also go deeply into each subject’s history of their social lives, which would have helped greatly in understanding how their social issues came about in the first place. A person’s social interaction history is essential when studying their social behavior.

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