Do dogs feel guilt?

More Than Human - Guilty DogAnthropomorphism

People frequently attribute human-like characteristics to nonhuman things, such as our pets. This is called anthropomorphism. There is much debate in the scientific community about whether this is helpful or harmful to the animals, but that is a topic for another post. Guilt can be considered as a secondary human emotion; primary emotions include happiness and fear. Many owners will say their dog ‘knows’ when they have done something wrong (eg. chewing, toileting inside) because they ‘look guilty’.

More Than Human - Guilty DogOur dogs know us too well

Dogs have been domesticated for tens of thousands of years and in that time they have learned quite well how to anticipate and interpret the communication of humans. (1) They are even able to use human social cues to locate hidden food. (2) Dogs will behave differently in the presence of their owner, depending whether they are watching them or not. Dogs also consider their owners absence from the room to be the lowest level of attention. (3)

The guilty look

We all know the look, head down, avoiding eye contact, rolling onto the back, tail between the legs and perhaps cowering. A study was conducted by Alexandra Horowitz entitled ‘Disambiguating the “guilty look”: Salient prompts to a familiar dog behaviour’. (4) The aim of this study was not to prove whether dogs feel guilt as this is an internal state which we cannot measure. The aim was to investigate the circumstances which occur directly before the ‘guilty look’ to make inferences about this behaviour.

More Than Human - Guilty DogThe method

In her study, Horowitz used dogs and their owners in their own homes to mimic daily living conditions. The dogs were asked to sit and stay and a treat placed at a distance from them, with the owner commanding them not to eat it. The owner left the room and the dog was either given the treat or not by the experimenter. When the owner returned, the experimenter told them they had eaten the treat (or not) and to either scold or praise them. The information given to the owner was not always correct, meaning when the dog hadn’t eaten the treat the owner may have been instructed to scold the dog. This allowed the dog’s behaviour to be tested, independent of whether they had disobeyed their owner.

More Than Human - Guilty DogThe results

The dogs performed the ‘guilty look’, irrespective of whether they had eaten the treat or not. The dogs didn’t show more guilty behaviours when they had performed a forbidden act then when they had not. This means, the guilty behaviour is not actually linked to whether the dog has done something wrong, it is merely a response to the owner’s scalding. Interestingly, the guilty look was more pronounced when the dog was scalded after being obedient (didn’t eat the treat).

Conclusion

This study shows that dogs do not have an understanding of guilt in relation to ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour. In fact, your dog ‘looks guilty’ because of your behaviour towards them. We need to be careful when attributing human emotions to our more than human companions as they do not have the same understanding of the world as we do.

References

  1. Call et al., 2003, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.117.3.257
  2. Hare and Tomasello, 1999, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.113.2.173
  3. Schwab and Huber, 2006, DOI: 10.1037/0735-7036.120.3.169
  4. Horowitz, 2009, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2009.03.014

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