Dogs Do Not Show Pro-social Preferences towards Humans

Area of Science:

• Comparative psychology
• Animal behavior
• Domestication studies

Background:

• Pro-social behaviors, voluntary actions benefiting others, are crucial for cooperation.
• Previous research indicates pro-sociality in intraspecific contexts across species.
• Dogs, due to domestication, are hypothesized to exhibit enhanced interspecific pro-sociality with humans.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate dogs' pro-social preferences towards familiar versus unfamiliar human partners.
• To compare dogs' interspecific pro-social behavior with their previously observed intraspecific pro-sociality.
• To explore the influence of human non-communication on dogs' task engagement.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a food delivery paradigm to assess pro-social choices.
• Tested dogs with both familiar and unfamiliar human partners.
• Compared dog behavior (food delivery, gazing duration) with conspecific-partnered dogs from a prior study.

Main Results:

• Dogs did not exhibit preferential pro-social behavior towards familiar humans.
• The identity of human partners did not affect the rate of food delivery.
• Dogs gazed longer at human partners, but task completion was shorter compared to conspecific interactions, potentially due to lack of human communication.

Conclusions:

• Dogs' pro-social tendencies observed with conspecifics do not directly extend to human partners.
• The absence of human communication may negatively impact dogs' engagement in pro-social tasks.
• Future research should consider the role of human communication in interspecific pro-social interactions with dogs.