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ELSEVIER Why Do People Love Their Pets? John Archer Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom The evidence that people form strong attachments with their pets is briefly reviewed be- fore identifying the characteristics of such relationships, which include pets being a source of security as well as the objects of caregiving. In evolutionary terms, pet owner- ship poses a problem, since attachment a n d devoting resources to another species are, in theory, fitness-reducing. Three attempts to account for pet keeping are discussed, as are the problems with these views. Pet keeping is placed into the context of other forms of in- terspecific associations. From this, an alternative Darwinian explanation is proposed: pets are viewed as manipulating h u m a n responses that had evolved to facilitate h u m a n relationships, primarily (but not exclusively) those between p a r e n t a n d child. The pre- cise mechanisms that enable pets to elicit caregiving from h u m a n s are elaborated. They involve features that provide the initial attraction, such as neotenous characteristics, and those that enable the h u m a n owner to derive continuing satisfaction from interacting with the pet, such as the attribution of mental processes to human-like organisms. These mechanisms can, in some circumstances, cause pet owners to derive more satisfaction from their pet relationship than those with humans, because they supply a type of uncon- ditional relationship that is usually absent from those with other h u m a n beings. © 1997 Elsevier Science Inc. KEY WORDS: Attachment; Baby features; Evolutionary arms race; Manipulation; Pets; So- cial parasitism; Releasers. p et o w n e r s h i p is a very c o m m o n h u m a n activity, and people lavish much affection a n d m o n e y on their pets. F r o m a D a r w i n i a n perspective, it is a p u z z l i n g form of behavior, as it entails p r o v i s i o n i n g a m e m b e r of another species, in return for which there are no apparent benefits c o n n e c t e d to fit- ness. In this article, I first briefly review the evidence for the existence of strong attachments b e t w e e n people and their pets and discuss what forms these attachments take. I shall concentrate on cats and dogs, these b e i n g the most c o m m o n l y o w n e d Received March 22, 1996; revised December 17, 1996. Address reprint requests and correspondence to: John Archer, Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, PR1 2HE, Lancashire, UK. Evolution and Human Behavior 18:237-259 (1997) © 1997 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 0162-3095/97/$17.00 PII S0162-3095(97)00004-6