Is your dog an optimist or a pessimist?
A new study suggests that dogs may exhibit pessimistic behaviour similar to that seen in humans. Indeed they see the food bowl as ‘half empty’, rather than ‘half full’.
Measuring the emotional state of a dog is not an easy task; so in a recent study scientists used human psychology research to show that dogs can be optimists or pessimists.
This study was conducted at Bristol University and funded by The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), a welfare organisation that sees a large number of dogs given up for rehoming due to behavioural problems.
Professor Mike Mendl, the lead researcher of the study said:
“We know that people’s emotional states affect their judgments and that happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively. What our study has shown is that this applies similarly to dogs – that a ‘glass-half-full’ dog is less likely to be anxious when left alone than one with a more ‘pessimistic’ nature.”
The study used a group of rescue dogs that were taught that the location of their food bowl was related to being fed or not. Researchers put the food bowl somewhere between two sites where the dogs were used to seeing their bowl, and assessed the reactions of each dog. If they ran towards the bowl as though expecting food it showed that they displayed a ‘glass-half-full’ philosophy. This was in contrast with the dogs that did not expect food and so did not check the bowl, thus showing a pessimistic attitude.
Many owners have trouble leaving their pets at home alone because of the separation anxiety the dogs can suffer. Destroyed furniture and excessive barking are just some of the signs a dog may display when anxious. This study showed that dogs identified as ‘optimistic’ based on the food bowl test, were less anxious when left alone in the kennels. How about, these results could help vets develop better treatments for separation anxiety in dogs. ‘Pessimistic’ dogs might, for example, be re-homed with owners aware of their behavioural tendencies and perhaps minimise the harm done to such a dogs’ mental wellbeing.
Image courtesy of PaulDC under Creative Commons
Mendl, M., Brooks, J., Basse, C., Burman, O., Paul, E., Blackwell, E., & Casey, R. (2010). Dogs showing separation-related behaviour exhibit a ‘pessimistic’ cognitive bias Current Biology, 20 (19) DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.08.030
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