A Research On TheRelationship Between Pet Attachment, Pet Bereavement And Coping Stytle Among Chinese Junior School Student

Individuals in adolescence gradually shift from parent-child attachment to peerattachment. While in modern China, the close relationship between pets andhuman-being’s life has a great influence on people’s life and their physical andmental development. This study investigated the impact of pet attachment on juniorschool students’ ability of socialization from the perspective of coping style. Itanalized the development characteristics of pet attachment and pet bereavement,and explored the relationship among pet attachment, coping style and petbereavement. Translated Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale, Pet BereavementQuestionnaire and Coping Style Scale for Middle School Students were used on thequestionnaire to1,337students from three middle schools in Yancheng, JiangsuProvince.The results shows that: there’s a significant gender difference on petattachment and pet bereavement, significant difference of only-child was not foundon this study; there’s a higher level of attachment to dogs, cats, rodents and birds forjunior school students; for junior school students who were preoccupied attachmentstyle, the level of attachment to pets were significantly higher than the other threeattachment styles; level of pet bereavement for junior school students who have petsat home were significantly higher than those who haven’t; the one who had thehighest level of pet bereavement were students who kept cats; there’s a significantdifference on the “angry” on different interpersonal attachment styles; the petbereavement had a significant positive correlation with the time they spend withpets, while negative correlation with the time of pets died; there is significantcorrelation among pet attachment, pet bereavement and coping style of juniorschool students; while the time of pets died varies, pet attachment and differentcoping style can significantly affect pet bereavement.