Cargando…

Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment

Up to 90% of children with special education needs and about 40% of children in the general population show insecure or disorganized attachment patterns, which are linked to a diminished ability to use social support by others for the regulation of stress. The aim of the study was to investigate if...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Beetz, Andrea, Julius, Henri, Turner, Dennis, Kotrschal, Kurt
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Research Foundation 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23162482
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00352
_version_ 1782249887729975296
author Beetz, Andrea
Julius, Henri
Turner, Dennis
Kotrschal, Kurt
author_facet Beetz, Andrea
Julius, Henri
Turner, Dennis
Kotrschal, Kurt
author_sort Beetz, Andrea
collection PubMed
description Up to 90% of children with special education needs and about 40% of children in the general population show insecure or disorganized attachment patterns, which are linked to a diminished ability to use social support by others for the regulation of stress. The aim of the study was to investigate if children with insecure-avoidant/disorganized attachment can profit more from social support by a dog compared to a friendly human during a stressful task. We investigated 47 male children (age 7–11) with insecure-avoidant or disorganized attachment. Social stress was elicited via the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C). For one group of children a friendly therapy-dog (n = 24) was present, for one control group a friendly human (n = 10) and for the other control group a toy dog (n = 13). Stress levels of the children were measured via salivary cortisol at five times (t1–t5) before, during, and after the TSST-C and subjective reports. The physiological stress response was significantly lower in the dog condition in comparison to the two other support conditions at t4, t5 and the overall stress reaction from t1 to t5 (Area Under the Curve increase; Kruskal–Wallis H-Test, pairwise post hoc comparisons via Mann–Whitney U-Tests). Cortisol levels correlated negatively (r(s)) with the amount of physical contact between the child and dog. We conclude that male children with insecure-avoidant or disorganized attachment profit more from the presence of a therapy-dog than of a friendly human under social stress. Our findings support the assumption that the increasing practice of animal-assisted education is reasonable and that dogs can be helpful assistants in education/special education, since stress interferes with learning and performance in students.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3498889
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2012
publisher Frontiers Research Foundation
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-34988892012-11-16 Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment Beetz, Andrea Julius, Henri Turner, Dennis Kotrschal, Kurt Front Psychol Psychology Up to 90% of children with special education needs and about 40% of children in the general population show insecure or disorganized attachment patterns, which are linked to a diminished ability to use social support by others for the regulation of stress. The aim of the study was to investigate if children with insecure-avoidant/disorganized attachment can profit more from social support by a dog compared to a friendly human during a stressful task. We investigated 47 male children (age 7–11) with insecure-avoidant or disorganized attachment. Social stress was elicited via the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST-C). For one group of children a friendly therapy-dog (n = 24) was present, for one control group a friendly human (n = 10) and for the other control group a toy dog (n = 13). Stress levels of the children were measured via salivary cortisol at five times (t1–t5) before, during, and after the TSST-C and subjective reports. The physiological stress response was significantly lower in the dog condition in comparison to the two other support conditions at t4, t5 and the overall stress reaction from t1 to t5 (Area Under the Curve increase; Kruskal–Wallis H-Test, pairwise post hoc comparisons via Mann–Whitney U-Tests). Cortisol levels correlated negatively (r(s)) with the amount of physical contact between the child and dog. We conclude that male children with insecure-avoidant or disorganized attachment profit more from the presence of a therapy-dog than of a friendly human under social stress. Our findings support the assumption that the increasing practice of animal-assisted education is reasonable and that dogs can be helpful assistants in education/special education, since stress interferes with learning and performance in students. Frontiers Research Foundation 2012-09-28 /pmc/articles/PMC3498889/ /pubmed/23162482 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00352 Text en Copyright © 2012 Beetz, Julius, Turner and Kotrschal. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Psychology
Beetz, Andrea
Julius, Henri
Turner, Dennis
Kotrschal, Kurt
Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment
title Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment
title_full Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment
title_fullStr Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment
title_full_unstemmed Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment
title_short Effects of Social Support by a Dog on Stress Modulation in Male Children with Insecure Attachment
title_sort effects of social support by a dog on stress modulation in male children with insecure attachment
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23162482
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00352
work_keys_str_mv AT beetzandrea effectsofsocialsupportbyadogonstressmodulationinmalechildrenwithinsecureattachment
AT juliushenri effectsofsocialsupportbyadogonstressmodulationinmalechildrenwithinsecureattachment
AT turnerdennis effectsofsocialsupportbyadogonstressmodulationinmalechildrenwithinsecureattachment
AT kotrschalkurt effectsofsocialsupportbyadogonstressmodulationinmalechildrenwithinsecureattachment