High school students and their pets

50 high school students, 25 boys and 25 girls, were individually interviewed using a series of open-ended questions to analyze the cognitive, affective, and behavioral factors in adolescents' attitudes toward their pets. It was hypothesized that cognitive elements would progress from the concrete operations stage to the formal operations stage, that empathy and perspective taking would continue developing, and that behavioral elements would be closely related to realistically assessed characteristics of pets. Although the data supported the second and third hypotheses, only 30 (60%) of the subjects had reached the formal operations stage of cognition. An unexpected finding was that a higher percentage of high school students than of the grade school students previously studied in 1985 indicated closeness to and love for their pets. Further research was suggested.