Dogs increase the subjective feeling of safety.

Men appear less threatening with a friendly dog at their side. This is the consensus among female participants in a Spanish study from countries with varying security situations.

Previous studies have already shown that dogs make people appear more likable and trustworthy. However, what is new about the study by psychologist Rafael Delgado-Rodríguez and his team is the finding that this effect occurs across countries, regardless of how safe people feel in their social environment.

A survey of 251 young women—

131 female students from Spain and 120 from Colombia, two countries with quite different levels of safety, evaluated photos depicting various social scenes, including neutral everyday situations and potentially threatening encounters. The threatening images showed a man, either alone or accompanied by a dog.

The study, published in the journal "Anthrozoös," found that when the man was accompanied by a dog, the scenes appeared less unpleasant, more controllable, and safer to the women. This so-called dog-accompanying effect was observed in both countries, namely the relatively safe Spain and the less safe Colombia.

Dogs mitigate threatening situations.

At the same time, while the photos with dogs were rated significantly more positively than the threatening scenes without dogs, they remained more negatively perceived than neutral comparison images. This shows that the defensive motivational system, i.e., a certain level of vigilance, remains active despite the calming effect.

In everyday life, this means that dogs can strengthen our subjective sense of security and emotionally mitigate the threat of threatening situations, regardless of cultural or social context. Their effect doesn't replace an objective sense of security, but it offers noticeable emotional relief – and underscores once again the special social significance of the human-dog relationship.

Share this post