Attachment styles influence grief severity after losing a pet, study suggests

A recent study published in Death Studies found that individuals with an anxious attachment style experienced more severe grief after the loss of a companion animal compared to those with an avoidant attachment style, who experienced less grief. This research sheds light on how attachment styles can influence the grieving process for pet owners.

Grieving the loss of a loved one is a profound and often overwhelming experience. People typically report feelings of shock, numbness, disbelief, anger, guilt, loneliness, rumination, anxiety, and depression during this time. Fortunately, for most individuals in peaceful, modern societies, the loss of a close loved one is relatively rare.

However, many people form strong emotional bonds with their pets or companion animals. Unlike human lifespans, the lifespans of most companion animals are much shorter, meaning that pet owners often face the death of their pets multiple times in their own lives. While many will grieve the loss of their animal companions, the intensity of this grief can vary significantly from person to person.

Study author Amy D. Lykins and her colleagues wanted to assess how the attachment style of an individual modified the experience of grief after the death of a companion animal. They hypothesized that grief would lessen over time and that individuals with anxious or avoidant attachment styles would experience more severe grief.

“I’ve loved animals as long as I can remember and I’ve always cared for one or more companion animals. Of course, human lifespans are generally longer than those of our most common companion animals, so you are faced with their deaths with some frequency,” explained Lykins, an associate professor in clinical psychology at the University of New England.

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“I lost a beloved companion animal in really tragic circumstances in 2014 and was really affected by it. As a clinical psychologist, I then got interested in what factors predict those long-lasting mental health impacts following companion animal death.

“In 2020, I had a student (Nick Gotsis) who was willing to work on this research with me, and after reviewing the literature, we decided to look at attachment patterns and how people continue to engage with their relationships with their animals post-death (i.e., continuing bonds). We also wanted to expand the literature to investigate animals other than cats and dogs, which is what most of the research had investigated thus far.”

Attachment styles refer to patterns of how individuals form emotional bonds and interact in relationships, influenced by early interactions with caregivers. Avoidant attachment is characterized by a tendency to distance oneself from others and suppress emotions to avoid dependency. Anxious attachment involves a strong desire for closeness and constant reassurance, often leading to fear of abandonment and high levels of anxiety in relationships.

The study involved 432 adults who had lost a companion animal in the past three years. Among the participants, 87% were women, with an average age of 42 years. Sixty percent were in committed romantic relationships. Half of the companion animals were dogs, and 27% were cats. Additionally, 66% of the participants reported that the death of their companion animal was sudden and unexpected.

Participants completed assessments of their attachment to the pet using the Pet Attachment Questionnaire, their continuing bonds with the pet using the Continuing Bonds Inventory, and the severity of their grief using the Pet Bereavement Questionnaire.

The results showed that individuals who still felt a strong bond with their deceased pet tended to experience more severe grief. Conversely, those who had lost their pet a longer time ago reported less severe grief. Individuals with an anxious attachment to their pet experienced more severe grief.

“We should recognize that many people feel deeply for the animals they care for, and that losing them can be extremely painful; this is often even more the case for people who have anxious attachment patterns to their animals,” Lykins told PsyPost. “Grief following companion animal loss often falls under the umbrella of ‘disenfranchised grief,’ where the loss doesn’t easily fit into society’s general attitude to what ‘should’ cause grief and therefore isn’t understood or accepted as valid. The exclusion of animal loss to DSM-5-TR’s new diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder should be reassessed.”

“Furthermore, our results suggest that people on the frontline of supporting people who lose a pet (e.g., veterinary staff, mental health professionals) could consider assessing people’s attachment patterns to their animals to ascertain who may be at higher risk of prolonged or severe grief and provide supports to these individuals early.”

Contrary to the researchers’ hypothesis, individuals with an avoidant attachment style reported less severe grief.

“We found the results for attachment avoidance interesting, given some previous research has shown grief severity and attachment avoidance to be positively correlated,” Lykins said. “I think that our results suggest that the negative relationship between these two variables is not likely to indicate delayed grief (as has been suggested by some researchers) given our time since death variable provided a larger span of time than many previous studies and we broke this down into months rather than years, so the variable was more specific.”

The study sheds light on the links between attachment style with a pet and the severity of grief after the pet’s death. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. The participants were predominantly women, and the recruitment method may have favored individuals experiencing higher levels of grief and stronger bonds with their pets. Therefore, the results might differ in studies involving men or individuals less enthusiastic about animals.

“It would be interesting to investigate these relationships among a more diverse sample of genders,” Lykins noted. “Our study is also cross-sectional, so we can’t say anything about X causing Y. It would be good to do longitudinal research on this topic.”

“It would be interesting to see how companion animal attachment relates to animal welfare,” she added. “For instance, do people with anxious attachment make different end-of-life decisions that could potentially prolong suffering rather than electing to euthanize their animals? Or are there other differences in how people interact with their animals while alive that could have repercussions for welfare that are influenced by attachment patterns?”

The paper, “Attachment styles, continuing bonds, and grief following companion animal death,” was authored by Amy D. Lykins, Paul D. McGreevy, Bindi Bennett, Nicola K. Paul, and Nick Gotsis.