Companion Animal Ownership Can Promote Life Value Reconstruction in College Students from Single-Parent Families

To overcome the limitations of existing instruments (e.g., LAPS) in measuring the life-centric cognitions that arise from human-animal interactions, the Attitudes toward Animal Life Scale (AALS) was developed in this study to target philosophical reflections on life’s meaning and value. We propose a moderated mediation model (see Figure 1) to address the following questions:
(1) Baseline Status: What are the current levels of life values and attitudes toward animal life in university students? Do single-parent students exhibit lower levels of life values?
(2) Mediation Mechanism: Do attitudes toward animal life mediate the relationship linking family structure (single-parent vs. two-parent) to life values?
(3) Conditional Effects: For single-parent students, is the indirect effect significantly stronger in those with companion animal ownership experience?
Thus, Study 1 developed the Attitudes toward Animal Life Scale (AALS) to target philosophical reflections on animal life’s meaning and value. Study 2 involved a broad survey of the college students to comparative analyses across single-family status. Study 3 further investigated whether attitudes toward animal life mediate the relationship linking single-family status to life values. Study e explored the moderating role of the companion animal ownership experience in the mediation model, attempted to verify that having companion animals could enhance the life values of college students from single-parent families. In summary, single-parent family status exerted a direct negative effect on life values. However, companion animal ownership helped mitigate these adverse effects by fostering a perspective that values the equality of all living beings.