New research on the social cognition
of the domestic dog has established the dog's skill at interpreting
communicative behavior of humans. By contrast, human interpretations of
dog behavior rely heavily on anthropomorphisms, claims generally
unverified by scientific research. The current research aims to examine
behavior associated with one claim dog owners make of their dogs:
“guilt” at doing a behavior that has been disallowed.
Previous
research asking owners what they believed their dogs “know” found
“disallowance” (disobedient acts) as the most frequent response. This
study looks at dogs' behavior after doing or not doing a disallowed act,
and after being scolded or greeted. We hypothesized that the data will
match a model that suggests that dogs are responding to human behavior,
but not a model suggesting dogs know a disallowed act is “wrong.”
Dogs
and their owners participated in 5 videotaped trials each in the
owners’ homes. Only dogs who obeyed commands of “sit,” “stay,” and “no”
were used. Using owner report and prior behavioral descriptions of
“guilt,” 8 guilt-related behaviors (GRBs) were isolated: avoiding eye
contact, rolling over, low wag, ears back, head down, licking, retreat,
and paw-up. In each trial, the owner showed the dog a treat, forbade
eating it, and left the room. The owner returned in 30 seconds, was told
whether the dog ate the treat, and was asked to act normally to greet
or chastise the dog, as appropriate. To test the hypothesis that GRBs do
not appear exclusively to doing a disallowed act, the trials varied the
availability of the treat: a confederate removed the treat; let it be;
or gave it to the dog. To test the hypothesis that GRBs are a response
to owner chastising behavior, the trials varied the owners' knowledge of
the dog's disobedience: guilty, owner knows; guilty, owner misinformed;
not guilty, owner knows; not guilty, owner misinformed.
In
every trial in which the treat was available, the dogs disobeyed and
ate the treat. Rate of GRBs in all trials was scored. Preliminary
analysis found no difference in the number of GRBs between disobedient
and non-disobedient trials. By contrast, more GRBs were seen in trials
when the owner scolded the dog, whether the dog had disobeyed or not.
Confederate permission of the treat resulted in more GRBs than
confederate removal of the treat.
In
the context of a disallowed treat, dogs’ GRBs corresponded to the
human's scolding of the dog, following discovery of the disallowed act
or the belief that the act had occurred. GRBs were not more common when
the dog did a disallowed act than when it had not. GRBs are similar to
behaviors indicating fear and submission. In this study, dogs’ behavior
was associated with the human, not the disallowed act or object, perhaps
in fearful anticipation of punishment or scolding by the owner.
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