Pets Over Pests: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Nature-Relatedness in the Context of Emotional Support Animals

Emotional Support Animals (ESAs), animals that provide emotional support to individuals with disabilities without specialized training, have attracted attention, with sightings in unexpected spaces with no legal access rights. With the help of two multi-method studies, this research examines factors influencing onlooker trust (or lack thereof) toward ESA owners when seen with their ESAs in such spaces. Trust refers to believing in the credibility of an ESA owner regarding the statement or portrayal of the truth about the animal being an ESA. Study 1, a survey involving 152 online panel participants, focused on individual traits and demonstrated that (1) increasing self-efficacy and (2) decreasing nature-relatedness of the onlooker was associated with decreasing trust toward the ESA owner when seen with an ESA in a public space. Participants rated animals perceived as pets (e.g., dogs) as significantly more appropriate as ESAs than animals perceived as pests (e.g., tarantulas). Additionally, respondents felt they would be significantly less comfortable seeing ESAs in a nature-distal (vs. nature-proximal) public space. Study 2, involving 296 online panel participants, focused on contextual variables and showed that in nature-distal spaces, participants were significantly more likely to trust ESA owners of animals who were more commonly viewed as pets than ESA owners of animals who are typically perceived as pests. In nature-proximal spaces, participants tended to trust ESA owners equally regardless of the ESA species. Theoretical contributions, along with study implications related to ESA-related information sessions and certification processes, are discussed.