Source 4

Kertes, Darlene A et al. “Effect of Pet Dogs on Children’s Perceived Stress and Cortisol Stress Response.” Social development (Oxford, England) 26.2 (2017): 382–401. Web.

This is a scholarly paper on an experiment about using science to prove pet dogs have a stress-buffering effect for children. They think children cannot adjust the mood and reduce stress like adults. They have two-person to act as judges. And make children do some work. If the child made a mistake, they will tell the child to restart it again. This is the way to make children feel stress. Then, they divided the children into two groups. They send children to another room. One group is taking rest with their parents, another group is taking rest with their pet dog. Finally, they extract children’s saliva. The things they need to test and compare is cortisol, this is an element that can prove human stress state. There are many ways that can decrease the cortisol level. Like the time children spend petting the dog, the number of times that dogs using the body to approach children and children using command word to make dog set or do something else. The conclusion of the experiment is pet dogs do buffer stress. If dogs can respond to the children’s behavior, then the effect of the experiment will be even more remarkable.

Scholars proved their hypothesis of pet dogs can help people stressless through professional experiments and researches. I completely agree with the opinion and the conclusion of this paper. Joint research by multiple universities greatly increases the credibility of the papers and contains large amounts of data and explanations. The author says “ In sum, this study demonstrated that among typically developing children, perceived stress during a novel stressor is buffered in the presence of a pet dog”. Now there’s scientific evidence that dogs can reduce stress, So If people worrying about their kids facing stress, they can think about keeping a pet. Not only dogs, different pets have different ways to help people reduce stress. But there is one thing that never changes, It is the company. To understand this paper, I need to search for some definitions of those professional terms. The style of the paper is more like scientific proof, so it is difficult to read and understand. If they can add a clear explanation part, that will help people to understand better. 

Quotable

It also demonstrated that when children are under stress with their pet dog present, the cortisol response to stress is associated with both the degree to which children solicit and pet their dogs and the degree to which dogs seek proximity to their child owners. These findings provide clear and compelling evidence that pet dogs have direct socioemotional and physiological effects on children in the face of a novel stressor.

 In sum, this study demonstrated that among typically developing children, perceived stress during a novel stressor is buffered in the presence of a pet dog.