Is your dog empathic? Developing a Dog Emotional Reactivity Survey

Abstract

Dogs' seemingly empathic behaviour attracts general and scientific attention alike. Behaviour tests are usually not sufficiently realistic to evoke empathic-like behaviour; therefore we decided to ask owners about their experiences with their dogs in emotionally loaded situations. Owners from Hungary (N = 591) and from Germany (N = 2283) were asked to rate their level of agreement on a 1–5 Likert scale with statements about the reactivity of their dogs to their emotions and to other dogs’ behaviour. We created two scales with satisfactory internal reliability: reactivity to the owner’s emotion and reactivity to other dogs’ behaviour. Based on an owner-dog personality matching theory, we hypothesised that the owner’s empathy, as measured by the subscale on the cooperativeness character factor of the human personality, will correlate with their dog’s emotional reactivity in emotionally loaded situations. In addition we also examined how anthropomorphism, contagious yawning, attitude toward the dog are related to emotional reactivity in dogs as perceived by the owner. In addition we examined how owners rate dog pictures. We found that the scale scores were largely independent from demographic and environmental variables like breed, sex, age, age at acquiring, keeping practices, training experiences and owner's age. However, anthropomorphic and emotional attitude of the owners probably biased the responses. In the German sample more empathic owners reported to have more emotionally reactive dog, as expected by the personality matching theory. More empathic owners reported to have fewer problems with their dogs and they rated a puppy picture as more cute in both countries. 62% of owners from Hungary and 36% of owner from Germany agreed with the statement “My dog is more important for me than any human being”. In Germany, more empathic owners agreed less with this statement and indicated that their dogs have a tendency for contagious yawning. Owners whose attitudes toward their dogs were anthropomorphic (agreed more with the statement that “My dog thinks like a child”), perceived their dogs as more reactive to their emotions. This findings highlights the importance of testing the attitudes of the respondents when they assess the personality and the emotions of animals. The criterion validity of the Dog Emotional Reactivity Survey should be confirmed by objective behavioural tests.

My Dog Is Not My Cat: Owner Perception of the Personalities of Dogs and Cats Living in the Same Household

“…However, the effect of the region of residence on some PCs suggests that cultural factors of the owner may also influence the perception of the pets’ personalities [ 13 ]. Some recent reports on the dog-human relationship seem to confirm the link between owner and perceived or actual animal personality [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Cimarelli et al [ 12 ] showed relationships between owner personality, interaction style, age, and dog behaviour.…”

“…Cimarelli et al [ 12 ] showed relationships between owner personality, interaction style, age, and dog behaviour. Sümegi et al [ 15 ] hypothesized the presence of emotional contagion, Szaánthó [ 14 ] of empathy, while other authors [ 13 , 55 ] reported similarity or complementarity between the personality profiles of dogs and owners. Assuming that owner personality is influential, the perceived differences between species remain challenging to explain.…”

“…Therefore, studies on pets’ personalities should consider the influence of all these genetic and environmental factors, as well as their interactions [ 10 ]. Finally, when the personality of a pet is assessed through the subjective owner’s judgment, it could be influenced by attitudes, attachment, or personality of the owner himself/herself [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].…”

“…One might expect parallels in personality traits of dogs and cats living in the same household, because they share the same social and physical environment [ 1 , 2 ]. Furthermore, if the influence of owner characteristics on the perceived personality of their pets is true [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ], we do not expect differences between dogs and cats as they are judged by the same owner. Finally, although dog owner reports may have a higher potential for subjective bias compared to behavioural observations, owners have the opportunity to observe the animal in a variety of situations over an extended period making the questionnaire an appropriate measure of pets’ personalities [ 33 ].…”

Investigating emotional contagion in dogs (Canis familiaris) to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics

“…Furthermore, on a multimodal level combining visual with acoustic stimuli, dogs can extract, integrate, and discriminate humans’ as well as conspecifics’ emotional expressions (Albuquerque et al 2016 ). Focussing particularly on empathy, a recent questionnaire study investigated dog owners’ evaluation of empathic-like responding in their dogs (Szánthó et al 2017 ). However, apart from this first survey-based approach of the topic, previous studies focussed on behavioural observations of dogs confronted with emotional situations in an intraspecies context and an interspecies context.…”