Researcher Studying Pets and Well-Being Inspired by Her Pet Chicken

Sonia Kong, an assistant professor at the psychology department of the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Canada, keeps a chicken as a pet that helps her stay grounded. This unconventional furbaby, named Saturday, serves as a beloved companion animal to her, but may be inspiring her academic research as well.

This is because Kong is researching how pets affect the social and emotional well-being and development of teenagers. As CBC reports, Saturday strengthens the connection she studies daily: how humans gain from the bonds they form with the creatures around them.

Kong’s academic experience seems a great match for her research, as she has an interdisciplinary background that bridges developmental and cultural psychology, as UNBC explains.

For the Love of Pets
Kong’s pet hen is named after the day her grateful owner collected her from a farm near UNBC. She plumped for a hen because she was raised around chickens and ducks, and has felt a soft spot for them ever since. This is despite her confession that her parents jokingly asked if her pet chicken would end up on a plate!

“She is quite cute. She has yellow feathers and a cute small head,” Kong tells CBC. Kong adds that “she’s shy, she’s very sensitive, especially when she’s trying to lay eggs.”

What’s more, the pair are inseparable, with the precious pet typically perching on her leg or beside her when she has to work to cope with busy research schedules and outreach work. She also pays homage to her chicken’s natural empathy when she’s sad, and praises how Saturday gives her oodles of emotional support, quietly showing concern like a tiny, feathered helper, as Power 100 puts it.

Saturday, it transpires, is quite the mollycoddled pet too. Kong has even made her customized diapers so they enjoy going on errands around the city together.

An International Slant

Kong’s research is international. Her study into how pets affect the social and emotional development of teens looks at this phenomenon across cultures, so she is collaborating with fellow assistant professor, Tracy Wong, based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Both are striving to better understand just how relationships with their pets can facilitate the healthy development of teens in various cultural settings.

Significantly, the pair are aware that attitudes to pets differ around the world. In Western cultures, pets are usually highly valued, while in others, they are seen more in terms of specific functions such as protection, food, or pest control. Kong refers to these various approaches as cultural value differences.

Their research is being carried out through an online survey. With a bank of data already gathered on thoughts and feelings about pets among teens based in Hong Kong, the pair are now looking to expand their bank of data on Canadian adolescents aged 10-17, as Radio Daybreak North has announced.