John
06-15-2009, 03:58 PM
Dog owners who believe their pets have a "guilty look" are imagining things, according to a new study.
Researchers at a New York college tricked owners into thinking innocent pets had misbehaved - and the owners still claimed to see the guilty look.
Alexandra Horowitz, assistant professor at Barnard College in New York, said that owners were projecting human values onto their pets, reports the BBC.
The research, Canine Behaviour and Cognition, looked at how dog owners interpreted their pets' expressions, when they believed that the dog had stolen and eaten a forbidden treat.
In a series of tests, owners were sometimes given accurate and sometimes false information about whether their dog had stolen the treat.
But the research, published in Behavioural Processes, found that owners' interpretations of whether their dog looked guilty bore no reliable link with whether the dog had really stolen the treat.
When the owners had been told their dog had misbehaved, they saw this guilty expression, even when the dog had not really done anything wrong.
If an owner thought the dog had misbehaved and then told the dog off, some dogs showed an "admonished" look, which humans then misunderstood as an admission of guilt.
The dogs which were most likely to "look guilty", according to their owners, were those who were entirely innocent and had then been told off by owners who believed that they had stolen treats.
Researchers concluded that any such "guilty look" is a response to human behaviour and has no relation with the dog's actions or sense of having broken any rules.
Researchers at a New York college tricked owners into thinking innocent pets had misbehaved - and the owners still claimed to see the guilty look.
Alexandra Horowitz, assistant professor at Barnard College in New York, said that owners were projecting human values onto their pets, reports the BBC.
The research, Canine Behaviour and Cognition, looked at how dog owners interpreted their pets' expressions, when they believed that the dog had stolen and eaten a forbidden treat.
In a series of tests, owners were sometimes given accurate and sometimes false information about whether their dog had stolen the treat.
But the research, published in Behavioural Processes, found that owners' interpretations of whether their dog looked guilty bore no reliable link with whether the dog had really stolen the treat.
When the owners had been told their dog had misbehaved, they saw this guilty expression, even when the dog had not really done anything wrong.
If an owner thought the dog had misbehaved and then told the dog off, some dogs showed an "admonished" look, which humans then misunderstood as an admission of guilt.
The dogs which were most likely to "look guilty", according to their owners, were those who were entirely innocent and had then been told off by owners who believed that they had stolen treats.
Researchers concluded that any such "guilty look" is a response to human behaviour and has no relation with the dog's actions or sense of having broken any rules.