Jealousy in dogs? Evidence from brain imaging

Cook, Peter F.; Prichard, Ashley; Spivak, Mark; Berns, Gregory S.

doi:10.51291/2377-7478.1319

Cited by 21 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Finally, we found a tendency for a difference between the human identities in the amygdala, i.e., caregiver versus stranger, irrespective of the social situation. However, while this would be in line with previous research ( Cook et al. 2018 ), this result was only detected at a liberal threshold and not corroborated by the ROI analysis, which is why we refrain from putting too much weight on it.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

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Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Karl

Sladky

Lamm

et al. 2021

Cerebral Cortex Communications

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We have limited knowledge on how dogs perceive humans and their actions. Various researchers investigated how they process human facial expressions, but their brain responses to complex social scenarios remain unclear. While undergoing fMRI, we exposed pet dogs to videos showing positive social and neutral non-social interactions between their caregivers and another conspecific. Our main interest was how the dogs responded to their caregivers (compared to a stranger) engaging in a pleasant interaction with another dog that could be seen as social rival. We hypothesized that the dogs would show activation increases in limbic areas such as the amygdala, hypothalamus and insula, and likely show higher attention and arousal during the positive caregiver-dog interaction. When contrasting the social with the non-social interaction, we found increased activations in the left amygdala and the insular cortex. Crucially, the dogs’ hypothalamus showed strongest activation when the caregiver engaged in a positive social interaction. These findings indicate that dogs are sensitive to social affective human-dog interactions, and likely show higher valence attribution and arousal in a situation possibly perceived as a potential threat to their caregiver bonds. Our study provides a first window into the neural correlates of social and emotional processing in dogs.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…A recent dog fMRI study found increased amygdala activity of dogs observing their caregiver giving treats to a fake dog in comparison to putting treats into a bucket ( Cook et al. 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Karl

Sladky

Lamm

et al. 2021

Cerebral Cortex Communications

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“…These results provide strong support for past research (Abdai et al, 2018; Cook et al, 2018; Harris & Prouvost, 2014; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Fusar Poli, et al, 2018; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Pelosi, & Valsecchi, 2018) that has suggested that dogs behave differently in response to jealousy-inducing and nonjealousy-inducing contexts because they are experiencing some form of jealousy (or proto-jealousy; Harris & Prouvost, 2014; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Fusar Poli, et al, 2018; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Pelosi, & Valsecchi, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…In these studies, researchers examined how dogs react when observing their owners petting or feeding a potential social rival (either a real dog or a fake dog), compared with an inanimate object. Four studies have found differences in dogs’ reactions to these two events—including in the amount of time spent looking at the owner (Abdai et al, 2018; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Fusar Poli, et al, 2018), snapping (Harris & Prouvost, 2014), whining (Harris & Prouvost, 2014), and moving in between or pushing the owner and the rival (Abdai et al, 2018; Harris & Prouvost, 2014)—and in brain-activation patterns (Cook et al, 2018), whereas one study found no behavioral differences (Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Pelosi, & Valsecchi, 2018). The literature to date therefore suggests that dogs might react to jealousy-inducing situations as humans do, with a constellation of different behaviors that vary among individuals (Hart et al, 1998; Hart, 2016; Mize & Jones, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike researchers in previous studies (Abdai et al, 2018; Cook et al, 2018; Harris & Prouvost, 2014; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Fusar Poli, et al, 2018; Prato-Previde, Nicotra, Pelosi, & Valsecchi, 2018), we ensured that the social rival was present in all conditions, kept owners blind to condition during test trials, and occluded actual contact between the owner and the potential social rival, thus requiring dogs to infer the occurrence of this interaction via mental representation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Dogs Mentally Represent Jealousy-Inducing Social Interactions

et al. 2021

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Jealousy may have evolved to protect valuable social bonds from interlopers, but some researchers have suggested that it is linked to self-awareness and theory of mind, leading to claims that it is unique to humans. We presented dogs ( N = 18; 11 females; age: M = 4.6 years, SD = 1.9) with situations in which they could observe an out-of-sight social interaction between their owner and a fake dog or between their owner and a fleece cylinder. We found evidence for three signatures of jealous behavior in dogs: (a) Jealousy emerged only when the dog’s owner interacted with a perceived social rival, (b) it occurred as a consequence of that interaction and not because of the mere presence of a conspecific, and (c) it emerged even for an out-of-sight interaction between the dog’s owner and a social rival. These results support claims that dogs display jealous behavior, and they provide the first evidence that dogs can mentally represent jealousy-inducing social interactions.

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Jealousy

Vonk¹

2021

Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Jealousy in dogs? Evidence from brain imaging

Cited by 21 publications

References 56 publications

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Dogs Mentally Represent Jealousy-Inducing Social Interactions

Jealousy

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