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ORIGINAL PAPER
Empathic-like responding by domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)
to distress in humans: an exploratory study
Deborah Custance •Jennifer Mayer
Received: 13 September 2011 / Revised: 23 April 2012 / Accepted: 23 April 2012
Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract Empathy covers a range of phenomena from
cognitive empathy involving metarepresentation to emo-
tional contagion stemming from automatically triggered
reflexes. An experimental protocol first used with human
infants was adapted to investigate empathy in domestic
dogs. Dogs oriented toward their owner or a stranger more
often when the person was pretending to cry than when
they were talking or humming. Observers, unaware of
experimental hypotheses and the condition under which
dogs were responding, more often categorized dogs’
approaches as submissive as opposed to alert, playful or
calm during the crying condition. When the stranger pre-
tended to cry, rather than approaching their usual source of
comfort, their owner, dogs sniffed, nuzzled and licked the
stranger instead. The dogs’ pattern of response was
behaviorally consistent with an expression of empathic
concern, but is most parsimoniously interpreted as emo-
tional contagion coupled with a previous learning history in
which they have been rewarded for approaching distressed
human companions.
Keywords Empathy Emotional contagion Domestic
dogs
Introduction
Dogs and humans have shared a symbiotic bond for at least
15,000 years (Miklo
´si 2008; Savolainen et al. 2002). Over
that period, dogs have been subject to intense selective
breeding that has not only produced breeds with markedly
different body shapes and sizes but also differing behav-
ioral dispositions (Scott and Fuller 1974). Hare et al.
(2002) have argued that the process of domestication has
also conveyed advanced socio-cognitive abilities to dogs
(e.g., Hare and Tomasello 2006; Topa
´l et al. 2006;
Kaminski et al. 2009). In addition, it has been suggested
that domestication has led to a strong predisposition in
dogs to form close affectional bonds with humans (Topa
´l
et al. 1998; Prato-Previde et al. 2003; Palmer and Custance
2008). The genetic basis of this process has been well
established in silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes), which over the
course of 30 years of selective breeding not only became
increasingly tame and friendly toward humans, but also
developed a dog-like appearance with floppy ears, spotty
coats, and curly tails (Belyaev et al. 1981; Trut et al. 2002).
One aspect of the dog–human affectional bond, often
sited by pet-owners, is the fact that dogs seem empathically
well-tuned to human emotions (Vitulli 2006). They appear
to celebrate our joy and commiserate our sorrow. Although
owners readily report empathic-like responding in their
pets, systematic empirical confirmation remains elusive
(Silva and de Sousa 2011). Although it has been found that
dogs will contagiously yawn in response to a human
yawning (Joly-Mascheroni et al. 2008), such behavior
seems very different from empathically responding to
human emotional displays such as distress. Zahn-Waxler
et al. (1984) in a study on empathy in human infants noted
that some household dogs appeared to respond empathi-
cally when their owner pretended to cry. However, the
report of this behavior constituted little more than an
anecdotal observation.
Despite over a century of interest, no consensus exists
over a proper definition of empathy. Although its linguistic
roots are in ancient Greek, the word empathy was first
D. Custance (&)J. Mayer
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College,
8 Lewisham Way, New Cross, London SE14 6NW, UK
e-mail: d.custance@gold.ac.uk
123
Anim Cogn
DOI 10.1007/s10071-012-0510-1
introduced relatively recently into modern usage in the
context of the philosophy of aesthetics. It was originally
used to refer to ‘‘feeling into’’ works of art or nature
(Titchener 1909). However, from the mid-twentieth cen-
tury onwards, empathy became a focus of psychological
research in the context of social communication and pro-
sociality (Silva and de Sousa 2011). Although there seem
to be as many definitions of the term as researchers inter-
ested in it, empathy has broadly been defined as, ‘‘the
naturally occurring subjective experience of similarity
between the feelings expressed by self and others without
loosing (sic.) sight of whose feelings belong to whom’’
(Decety and Jackson 2004, p. 71).
Developmental and comparative psychologists have
identified a number of empathy-related phenomena
involving varying degrees of cognitive complexity (e.g.,
Eisenberg 2009; Preston and de Waal 2002). Batson et al.
(1981) were among the first to distinguish empathy from
personal distress. Both processes are underpinned by
emotional contagion in which perceiving another’s emo-
tional state triggers a similar emotional response in an
observer. Yet, while personal distress is self-oriented,
empathy is other-oriented (Batson 1991). Eisenberg (2009)
defined personal distress as, ‘‘self-focused, aversive emo-
tional reaction to the vicarious experiencing of another’s
emotion …that is associated with the egoistic motivation
of making oneself feel better’’ (p. 126). Thus, upon wit-
nessing another infant cry, an observing infant may also
start to cry, but instead of offering aid to the initially dis-
tressed individual the observing infant seeks comfort for
her own vicariously triggered distress.
In contrast to personal distress, while empathizing
individuals still experience a vicarious emotional reaction
to the emotional state displayed by others, they do not
become entirely focused upon their own emotional
response. As such, empathy requires a capacity for self-
other differentiation (Preston and de Waal 2002; de Waal
2008). The empathizer’s response to the other’s emotional
state is primarily focused upon or oriented toward the other
rather than themselves. Hence, a behavioral indicator of
empathy may be comfort-offering or helping behavior in
response to another’s distress.
Some theorists have also discussed another highly cog-
nitively complex category of empathy-related processing,
sometimes labeled sympathy (e.g., Eisenberg 2009)or
cognitive empathy (e.g., Preston and de Waal 2002).
Eisenberg (2009) defined it as, ‘‘an affective response that
frequently stems from empathy, but can derive solely (or
partly) from perspective taking or other cognitive pro-
cessing, including retrieval of information from memory. It
consists of feelings of sorrow or concern for the distressed
or needy other rather than feeling the emotion as the other
person is experiencing or expected to experience it’’
(p. 126). Such a highly complex category of empathic
responding would be extremely difficult to establish
empirically without the aid of verbal self-report. Thus, it
seems unlikely that one could provide convincing evidence
of sympathy in non-verbal participants such as very young
human infants or non-human animals.
Although it would be very difficult to establish a
capacity for sympathy in non-human animals, there is
growing evidence that many species are nevertheless sen-
sitive to distress in others. Rats (Church 1959) and mon-
keys (Wechkin et al. 1964) have been found to forgo food
in order to avoid delivering electric shocks to conspecifics.
Mice have shown increased sensitivity to their own pain
when paired with familiar mice experiencing a different
type of pain (Langford et al. 2006). Additionally, there is
evidence of empathic concern in chimpanzees, cats, and
dogs (Zahn-Waxler et al. 1984; Yerkes 1925; Ladygina-
Kohts 1935/2001), yet this is largely anecdotal. There is,
however, systematic observational data on post-conflict
‘‘consolation’’ in apes (de Waal and van Roosmalen 1979),
rooks (Seed et al. 2007), and domestic dogs (Cools et al.
2008). Such consolatory behavior involves a third party
approaching and often making physical contact with either
the winner or loser of a former altercation. Yet the degree
to which this functions as comfort-offering is not clear,
since there is little evidence of stress alleviation as a result
of such post-conflict affiliation (Koski and Sterck 2007).
As indicated above, most evidence of empathy-related
behavior in non-human animals involves intraspecies
responding. The anecdotal observations of dogs are of
particular interest since they often involve interspecies
(i.e., dog to human) empathic-like behavior. The distress
signals of humans are very different to those of dogs.
Nevertheless, one might expect a predator/scavenger, such
as a dog, to be predisposed to respond to the distress signals
of other species. However, rather than provoking empathic-
like responding, it seems just as likely that distress in an
interspecific would provoke alert or predatory related
behavior in dogs. It is not immediately clear how one might
expect a dog to respond to distress in humans.
There has been some experimental study of empathi-
cally motivated help-seeking in dogs. Macpherson and
Roberts (2006) found that pet dogs failed to seek the help
of a human bystander when their owner feigned a heart
attack or was pinned by a bookcase. The authors concluded
that the ‘‘dogs did not understand the nature of the emer-
gency or the need to obtain help’’ (p. 113). But seeking
help from a bystander is a rather complex type of empathic
responding. We set out to investigate a slightly less com-
plex scenario. How do dogs respond when humans sud-
denly begin to cry for no readily apparent reason?
It has been found that when typically developing human
infants are faced with suddenly crying individuals, they
Anim Cogn
123
will often hug, pat, make appropriate verbal utterances
(e.g., ‘‘there, there’’, ‘‘it’s okay’’), offer toys, and some-
times recruit assistance (Zahn-Waxler et al. 1979,1984).
The behavior of dogs under similar circumstances is harder
to interpret. Dogs can whine, nuzzle, lick, lay their head in
the person’s lap or fetch toys. Yet, such behavior could be
an expression of contagious distress and egoistic comfort-
seeking rather than empathically motivated comfort-offer-
ing. Alternatively, such behavior could be motivated by
curiosity. Hence, the primary challenge in investigating
possible empathy in dogs is devising an experimental
procedure that can elucidate the distinction between curi-
osity, egoistic attention- or comfort-seeking and expres-
sions of genuine empathic concern.
In an attempt to solve this conundrum, we modified Zahn-
Waxler et al.’s (1984) procedure to include a condition in
which an unfamiliar person also pretended to cry. If the dogs
were principally seeking comfort for themselves, we pre-
dicted that they would avoid the crying stranger and
approach their owner instead. If the dogs’ approach was
principally motivated by curiosity, we predicted that any
relatively uncommon behavior, of a similar intensity to
crying, would elicit approach. Therefore, we included a
condition in which the owner and stranger took turns hum-
ming in a strange staccato manner. We also compared the
dogs’ behavior in response to crying and humming with
periods in which the humans were talking. Talking is a very
common human activity for dogs to witness and thus it
served as a baseline condition with which to compare their
responses to the rather strange or uncommon crying and
humming behavior. Finally, we also evaluated the emotional
tone of the dogs’ approaches during the different conditions
(i.e., crying, humming and talking). If the dogs were exhib-
iting contagiously triggered personal distress or empathy,
one would expect them to behave in a subdued, submissive
manner rather than being playful, neutrally calm or alert.
Method
Participants
Eighteen medium-sized domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)
from the North West USA participated in the study. There
were 9 females and 9 males of various breeds (10 mon-
grels, three Labradors, two Golden Retrievers, one Vizsla,
one Belgian Shepherd, and one Beagle) with a mean age of
9 years and 9 months ranging from 8 months to 12 years.
Twelve dogs had been adopted by their current owners
from a canine rescue center. The remaining six were
acquired either from a breeder or from the litter of a per-
sonal acquaintance. All were household pets with no spe-
cialist training beyond basic obedience.
Eighteen owners (one per dog) comprising 14 women
and 4 men ranging from 34 to 72 years of age also par-
ticipated in the study. Length of ownership ranged from
2 months to 12 years. When owners were asked how
responsive their dog had been to emotions in humans
previously, 15 dogs were anecdotally reported to have
responded (11 to sadness, seven to pain, eight to anger, and
nine to celebration).
Testing conditions and materials
In order to ensure that the dogs remained relatively
unstressed during the experiment and were thus more likely
to behave in a natural manner, they were tested in the
living-room of their own home. The owner and stranger
remained seated at least two meters apart throughout the
procedure, while a third person stood discreetly in one
corner of the room and recorded the dog’s behavior on a
Sony Handicam
camcorder.
Procedure
Each dog was exposed to four separate 20-s-long experi-
mental conditions in which: (1) their owner cried; (2) a
stranger cried; (3) their owner hummed; (4) the stranger
hummed. The order of who performed first (i.e., stranger or
owner) and whether they cried or hummed was counter-
balanced. In addition, each crying or humming condition
was preceded by 2 min during which the owner and
stranger talked.
The same person played the role of stranger throughout
(i.e., the second author, J. Mayer). She was entirely unfa-
miliar to the dogs prior to testing. From the moment of
entering their house, the stranger ignored the dogs: she did
not look directly at them or make any friendly overtures.
By the time testing began, all dogs showed little interest in
the stranger. As a result, when 20 s of the dogs’ behavior
was sampled 1 min into the procedure (during which the
owner and stranger were talking), 15 dogs were passive,
two were walking and one was playing. Thus, the dogs
were not overly fixated upon the stranger nor did they show
any aggressive territoriality.
The owners were given the following instructions con-
cerning their role during each condition: Crying: When you
are asked to cry, please pretend to cry to the best of your
ability for 20 s; you will be told when you can stop. The
only gestures you should make while you are pretending to
cry are either leaning forward or covering your face.
Humming: When you are asked to hum, please loudly hum
the nursery rhyme ‘‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’’ to the best of
your ability for 20 s; you will be told when you can stop.
Please hum at approximately the same volume and perform
the same gestures as you did or will do during the crying
Anim Cogn
123
condition. The owners were also asked not to refer to their
dog by name, look directly at him or her or initiate physical
contact during testing.
Once the owner had been briefed, the video-camera was
turned on and the testing session began. For the first 2 min
the stranger asked the owner questions from a previously
prepared list about the dog’s biographical details along
with soliciting anecdotal reports regarding the dog’s pre-
vious reactions to various emotional displays in humans.
When 2 min had elapsed, the first bout of crying or hum-
ming was performed. Immediately following this bout, the
owner and stranger returned to talking thereby allowing the
dog’s behavior to normalize. Thus, a total of two bouts of
crying and two of humming were performed, each sepa-
rated by 2 min of talking.
Behavioral analysis
The 20-s humming and crying conditions from the digital
video recordings of the testing sessions were analyzed
using 5-s point and time sampling (Martin and Bateson
2007). Because we also wished to compare the dogs’
responses to humming and crying with that of talking, we
sampled two 20-s phases during which the owner and
stranger talked. The first sample commenced 1 min after
the start of the experiment and the second sample was
taken 30 s after the second crying/humming phase.
Six different behaviors, divided into two categories,
were scored via 5-s point sampling. The category ‘‘person-
oriented’’ included ‘‘look at’’, ‘‘approach’’, and ‘‘contact’’
while ‘‘non-person-oriented’’ included ‘‘passive’’, ‘‘walk-
ing’’, and ‘‘solitary play’’ (Table 1). Thus, after every 5-s
interval, the behavior displayed by the dog at that precise
moment was recorded.
Since vocalizing was not a mutually exclusive behavior
(i.e., it could co-occur with any of the other behaviors) and
it was a rare and transient event, it was scored differently
using 5-s time sampling rather than point sampling. Thus,
if the dog made any vocalization during each 5-s interval,
this was scored as one and the type of the vocalization was
noted.
The second author (J. Mayer) scored all of the testing
sessions, and a naı
¨ve observer, who was unaware of the
study’s hypotheses, scored a random selection of four ses-
sions (i.e., 4 out of 18 dogs or 22 % of the sample). During
naı
¨ve scoring, a DVD without sound or labels was used so
that the naı
¨ve observer remained as far as possible unaware
of the experimental conditions or hypotheses. Inter-observer
agreement was very good: Cohen’s j=0.83.
In addition to the basic behaviors outlined above, we
also wished to evaluate the emotional tone of the dogs’
approaches to the stranger and owner to see whether they
approached in a different manner when the humans were
crying, humming, or talking. Four emotional states in dogs
were considered: submissive, calm, playful, and alert.
These four relatively mild emotional displays were chosen
because the other more extreme emotional signals descri-
bed in dogs such as fearfulness or aggression were not
evident in any of the subjects. (For reasons of welfare, the
procedure would have been curtailed if any of the dogs had
displayed strong fear or aggression). Three exemplars of
each emotion (two photographs and a line drawing) were
selected from a Googleimage search. An opportunity
sample of 10 experienced dog-owners, who were unaware
of the experimental hypotheses, was asked to identify
which of the four emotional states the dogs in the pictures
were displaying. There was 100 % agreement between the
observers on all but three of the 12 images. These three
pictures were discarded and the remaining images were
used to develop pen drawings of each of the relevant
emotional state postures (Fig. 1).
Three other independent observers, all of whom were
experienced dog-owners and unaware the study’s hypoth-
eses, were shown the four pen drawings along with short
descriptions of each emotional display.
Calm (relaxed or neutral) The dog’s ears are held down
but not laid flat and back (or if it is a breed that holds its ear
up all the time, such as a Doberman pincher or German
Table 1 Behavior scored by point and time sampling
Behavior Definition Grouping
Passive Sitting, standing, or lying down without paying any obvious attention to the physical or social environment NPO
Walking Walking around the room without orienting to either the owner or researcher NPO
Solitary Play Playful behavior not associated with either the owner or the researcher (e.g., chewing a toy) NPO
Look at person Sitting, standing or lying still while looking directly toward either the owner or stranger PO
Contact person Sniffing, licking, pawing, jumping up on or leaning against the owner or stranger PO
Approach Walking toward while clearly visually oriented to the owner or stranger PO
Vocalizing Any vocalization made by the dog (the nature of the vocalization was noted, e.g., whining or barking)
Transition Ambiguous, transitional actions
PO person-oriented, NPO non-person-oriented
Anim Cogn
123
Shepherd, the ears are not pricked forward). The mouth is
often open and the tongue is out or in view. The tail is held
in a neutral position (not between the legs, but not held up
toward horizontal or higher).
Submissive (mildly worried or concerned) The dog’s
body and head is slightly lowered. They hold their ears flat
and back. Their tail is held low and sometimes slightly
between their legs. They will also sometimes wag their tail
with a rapid side to side motion. They will sometimes
protrude their tongue slightly and raise one leg in a hesitant
placating manner.
Alert The dog’s ears are pricked and forward (some
breeds cannot prick their ears, but if possible they hold
them up slightly). The body is slightly raised and the legs
stiff. The dog stares in a fixed manner and its tail is held up
so that it is horizontal or higher.
Playful The dog moves in an exuberant, excited manner,
the tail is held up (often wagging), and the dog’s face
assumes a happy or excited expression with the mouth
often held slightly open. When requesting play dogs will
sometimes assume a ‘‘bow’’ posture: they lower their
front legs and raise their hind quarters with their tail
held up.
The three observers watched silent footage of all the
dogs’ approaches in the crying and humming conditions
(none of the dogs approached during talking). They were
asked to select which emotional category best fitted the
nature of the dog’s approach. The agreement between
observers was moderate to good: observer A to B Cohen’s
j=0.685, observer A to C Cohen’s j=0.463, and
observer B to C Cohen’s j=0.618. In 18 out of the 29
(67 %) crying and humming bouts in which approaches
occurred, all three observers agreed on the nature of the
dogs’ approaches. In the remaining nine bouts (33 %) at
least two observers agreed on the nature of the approach.
Therefore, the emotional tone of the dogs’ approaches
during each bout of crying or humming was taken to be that
category upon which two or more of the observers agreed.
Results
Table 2presents a summary of the point and time sample
data. According to the time sample data, significantly more
dogs approached during crying (N=15) than humming
(N=6) (McNemar test X
2
(1, N=18) =7.11,
p=0.008). None of the dogs approached during talking.
Fig. 1 Emotional postures in
dogs. aCalm, bsubmissive,
calert, dplayful
Anim Cogn
123
Only two dogs vocalized during testing. One dog whined
when its owner pretended to cry, and the other produced a
trilled-whimpering in response to the crying bouts of both
the owner and stranger.
There was a significant main effect for the degree of
person-oriented behaviors (i.e., the combined point sample
scores for look at, approach and contact) performed during
the crying, humming, and talking conditions (repeated
measures ANOVA, F(1.36, 23.03) =51.29, p\0.001,
Fig. 2). Bonferroni corrected post hoc tests showed that
dogs were significantly more person-oriented during crying
compared with humming (p\0.001) or talking
(p\0.001). Despite responding more strongly to crying,
the dogs still differentiated between humming and talking,
since there was a significantly higher rate of person-
oriented behaviors performed during humming versus
talking (p=0.045 one-tailed).
As mentioned earlier, it was hypothesized that if the
dogs were behaving in a manner consistent with empathy,
they would direct more behavior toward the person who
was crying than the silent witness. If, however, they
approached their owner when the stranger was crying, this
might suggest they were comfort-seeking. To test these
hypotheses, a 2 92 repeated measures ANOVA was
conducted on the dependent variable of number of person-
oriented behaviors performed by dogs during the crying
condition. The independent variables were identity of
person performing (owner/stranger) and behavior being
responded to (crying/sitting silently). There was no sig-
nificant main effect of identity of person performing
(F(1,17) =0.04, p=0.843). Thus, dogs did not perform
significantly more person-oriented behavior toward the
owner versus the stranger or vice versa. However, there
was a significant main effect for behavior being responded
to (F(1,17) =79.12, p\0.001). Dogs directed signifi-
cantly more person-oriented behaviors toward the person
crying than the silent companion (p\0.001; Fig. 3). There
was no significant interaction between the identity of the
person performing and the behavior being responded to
(F(1,17) =0.054, p=0.819).
Although the point sample data indicated that the dogs
oriented more to the humans when they were crying versus
humming or talking, this does not automatically mean that
they were responding in a manner consistent with empathy.
If they approached in a playful or alert manner, this would
be inconsistent with an expression of empathic concern.
Thus, we went on to analyze the independent observers’
ratings of the emotional tone of approaches made by the
dogs during crying. (As noted earlier, there were no
approaches during talking and only six dogs approached
during humming, which meant it was not possible to per-
form statistical analyses upon these data).
Table 2 Mean (SD) number of point and time samples in which dogs
responded in each condition
Response Cry Hum Talk
Look PS 3.78 (2.16) 1.39 (2.17) 0.06 (0.24)
Approach PS 0.06 (0.24) 0.11 (0.47) 0 (0)
Approach TS 1.11 (1.32) 0.22 (0.55) 0 (0)
Contact PS 1.61 (1.69) 0 (0) 0.06 (0.26)
Person-oriented PS 5.44 (2.31) 1.5 (2.36) 0.11 (0.47)
Non-person-oriented PS 2.56 (2.31) 6.5 (1.91) 7.89 (0.47)
Standard deviations (SD) are in parentheses after means. PS point
samples, TS time samples. Look, approach, and contact were com-
bined to form person-oriented. Although 5-s point sampling captured
very few approaches, when approach data were collected using 5-s
time sampling and analyzed separately the results followed the same
pattern as person-oriented. Looking and contact point sample data,
when analyzed separately, also followed the same pattern, except that
dogs looked significantly more during humming than talking
Fig. 2 Rate of person-oriented behaviors performed during the
crying, humming, and talking conditions Fig. 3 A dog approaches the ‘‘stranger’’ as she pretends to cry
Anim Cogn
123
Of the 15 dogs who approached during the crying con-
dition, 13 were judged to have done so in a submissive
manner; one dog was judged as alert, and another dog
approached the crying stranger in a playful manner and his
owner in an alert manner. Since there were four possible
emotional displays (submissive, alert, playful, and calm),
the null hypothesis was that there would be an equal
probability of the dogs displaying any one of them. Thus, a
non-central binomial test with a probability of 0.25 was
applied to the data. It was found that a much higher pro-
portion of the sample of dogs that approached during
crying did so in a submissive manner than one would
expect if the emotional type of approach displayed were
equiprobable (p\0.001).
Discussion
There are many different ways in which dogs could
respond to an apparently distressed human. They could fail
to respond at all and ignore the crying person; they could
become fearful and avoidant, even approaching another
calm human for reassurance; they could become alert and
even act in a dominant manner toward an apparently
weakened individual; they could become curious or play-
ful; or they could approach and touch the distressed person
in a gentle or submissive manner thereby providing reas-
surance or comfort. The majority of dogs in the present
study behaved in a manner that was consistent with
empathic concern and comfort-offering. The dogs respon-
ded to their owner and the stranger when they were crying
in a markedly differently manner compared with when they
were humming or talking. They oriented toward the person
(i.e., looking at, approaching and touching them) signifi-
cantly more during the crying condition than the humming
or talking conditions. Of the 15 dogs that approached
during the crying condition, the majority of them did so in
a submissive rather than playful, calm, or alert manner.
The fact that the dogs differentiated between crying and
humming indicates that their response to crying was not
purely driven by curiosity. The humming was designed to
be a relatively novel behavior, which might be likely to
pique the dogs’ curiosity. However, it was somewhat
similar to talking and one might suspect that the dogs did
not respond to it because they treated it as equivalent to
talking. Although humming did not provoke approach or
contact, the dogs nevertheless looked at the humming
person significantly more often than they looked during
talking. Thus, they seemed to notice that humming was
different from talking, but they did not become sufficiently
interested or aroused during humming to approach or touch
the person performing the behavior. In addition, the two
dogs who produced mild distress vocalizations during the
procedure only did so during the crying condition. Thus, it
seemed that crying carried greater emotional valence for
the dogs and provoked a stronger overall response than
either humming or talking.
It is possible that the dogs’ response to crying was dri-
ven principally by emotional contagion. The crying could
have triggered personal distress in the dogs so that their
approaches were driven by a desire to gain comfort for
themselves rather than to offer comfort to the human.
However, if the dogs’ approaches during the crying con-
dition were entirely motivated by egoistic comfort-seeking,
one might expect them to be more likely to approach their
usual source of comfort (i.e. their owner) in preference to
the stranger. Yet, no such preference was found. The dogs
approached whoever was crying regardless of their iden-
tity. In addition, when the person who was crying ignored
them (as they were instructed to do), if the dogs were
egoistically motivated, one might expect them to turn to the
other available non-crying person for comfort, particularly
if that person were their owner. However, only two dogs
approached both people during the crying condition (one
approached the crying stranger first and then her owner, the
other approached the calm stranger prior to going over to
his crying owner and then when the stranger was crying
approached the stranger prior to his owner). Thus, the
dogs’ behavior was not strongly consistent with what one
would expect if they were only egoistically comfort-
seeking.
Even if the dogs’ pattern of response exceeded what one
would expect of personal distress and egotistic comfort-
seeking, it does not automatically follow that they were
empathizing in the sense of making a self-other differen-
tiation. A more parsimonious explanation of their behavior
is that they may have previously received positive rein-
forcement for approaching crying individuals. Any house-
hold dog who approaches a distressed human family
member is likely to be positively reinforced by receiving
affection. Through the process of generalization, any
human who then cries in the presence of that dog is likely
to initiate a conditioned approach response. Since the dog
is nonetheless affected by emotional contagion the
response will still tend to be submissive in its emotional
tone. Thus, the behavioral outcome is a response to human
distress that is consistent with an expression of empathic
concern, but which may not actually involve the requisite
self-other differentiation needed for it to count as true
empathy.
Similarly, there is no compelling evidence to suggest
that the dogs’ behavior indicated sympathy or cognitive
empathy. Cognitive empathy would require them to exhibit
some understanding of the mental perspective of the crying
humans. Sympathetic humans can produce verbal utter-
ances such as, ‘‘Are you okay?’’ or ‘‘What is the matter?’’
Anim Cogn
123
which indicate that they are engaging with or asking after
the mental perspective of the crying person. Without the
benefit of such verbal responses, it is difficult to imagine
what behavior a dog could produce under such circum-
stances which could convincingly indicate mental per-
spective-taking.
In conclusion, we in no way claim that the present study
provides definitive answers to the question of empathy in
dogs. Nevertheless, we believe it sets out a profitable
direction for further study. There are many more possible
avenues of inquiry. For example, what is the effect of
breed? Nearly, all the dogs in our sample were medium-
sized mongrels or hunting breeds. How would toy breeds
respond? If learning history is important, a developmental
study with puppies might reveal important trends. In
addition, contrasting dogs with different rearing histories,
such as shelter dogs or highly trained working dogs, might
reveal systematic differences. It might be profitable to
study other emotions in contrast to crying. It is possible, as
mentioned earlier, that humming was too similar to talking
to provoke a strong response. On reflection, it might have
been better to have contrasted crying with laughing.
Laughing is a human emotional display that has a similar
auditory intensity to crying, but one might expect it to
provoke a playful rather than submissive approach. The
crying behavior in the present study was devoid of context.
Future studies could provide a context for the emotion
being displayed, such as fear caused by a snake or pain
caused by stubbing one’s toe. The experimental paradigm
we have developed offers a powerful new way to address
many of these questions.
Acknowledgments Many thanks to Gordon Mayer, Debbie Mayer,
Emily Bennett, Emma Collins, Emily Garside, Grace Godfrey, Robyn
Palmer, Laurence Muspratt, and Vincent for assistance with testing.
Grateful thanks to Pamela Heaton, Rory Allen, Kim Bard, Andrew
Bremner, Elisabeth Hill, Andrew Whiten, and Alison Jolly for com-
menting on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We are indebted to our
canine and human participants.
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