buylotrogold

psycoloquy.93.4.42.human-animal-bond.6.innis     Wednesday 21 July 1993 ISSN 1055-0143                 (11 paragraphs, 3 references, 161 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)                 Copyright 1993 Nancy K. Innis                         WHY BOND?         Book Review of Davis & Balfour on Human-Animal Bond                 Nancy K. Innis                 Department of Psychology                 University of Western Ontario                 London, CANADA N6A 5C2                 This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  or   This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 1. In the introductory chapter of THE INEVITABLE BOND, Examining scientist-animal interactions, Hank Davis and Dianne Balfour (1992; Davus 1993) claim that one of their primary concerns in presenting the papers in this edited volume is to examine the idea that If you bond with your animal, the behavior and physiology of the animal may be changed. (p. 2). In fact, I think the _title_, The inevitable bond, does the book a disservice. Human bonding, most recently male bonding, is but the latest fad in pop psychology; now we have interspecies bonding. Will it never end?  The sub_title_ is considerably more accurate. The book focuses on the ways in which the presence of humans can influence an animal's behavior and physiology. The implications of this for research with animals, and to a lesser extent for the perspective of the researcher who studies animals, are explored by the contributors. 2. THE INEVITABLE BOND comprises twenty-four chapters, three of which (chapters by Davis and Balfour, Estep and Hetts, and Lehman) introduce or provide general discussions of the concept of bonding and the ways in which humans and their nonhuman subjects may interact. In the final and by far weakest chapter, philosopher Hugh Lehman presents some philosophical reflections and addresses the ethical questions that arise because animals bond with or, by his definition, develop affectionate relationships with their handlers. Subsuming the important issues raised in this book as simply love-hate relationships between animals and researchers does nothing to enhance the scientific credibility of the field or the work being carried out in studies involving animals. 3. The remaining chapters in the book are reports by investigators examining human-animal interactions across a wide range of perspectives, topics, and approaches to animal research. Most exciting, in my view, is the large and diverse set of species