Timmy’s in the well: Empathy and prosocial helping in dogs

Abstract

Dogs are thought to evaluate humans' emotional states, and attend more to crying people than to humming people. However, it is unclear whether dogs would go beyond focusing attention on humans in need by providing more substantive help to them. This study used a trapped-other paradigm, modified from use in research on rats, to study prosocial helping in dogs. A human trapped behind a door either cried or hummed, and the dog's behavioral and physiological responses (i.e., door opening and heart rate variability) were recorded. Then, dogs participated in an impossible task to evaluate gaze at the owner as a measure of the strength of their relationship with their owner. Dogs in the distress condition opened at the same frequency, but significantly more quickly, than dogs in the control condition. In the distress condition, the dogs that opened showed lower levels of stress and were able to suppress their own distress response, thus enabling them to open the door more quickly. In the control condition, opening was not related to the dog's stress level and may have instead been motivated by curiosity or a desire for social contact. Results from the impossible task suggest that openers in the distress condition may have a stronger bond with their owner than non-openers, while non-openers in the control condition showed a stronger bond than openers, which may further suggest that the trapped-other paradigm is reflective of empathy.

Pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) release their trapped and distressed owners: Individual variation and evidence of emotional contagion

“…These studies yielded limited evidence that opening the door constituted a prosocial behavior. Sanford et al [36] observed interesting trends in post-hoc comparisons but the primary findings of this study did not support the hypothesis that dogs prosocially rescued their owners. Considering only individuals that opened, dogs in the experimental condition opened faster.…”

“…To date, two studies have tested for prosocial rescue behavior in dogs. Sanford et al [36] used a modified version of the trapped-other paradigm to assess whether dogs would walk to their owner in an adjacent room, which required pushing through a small, windowed door. In the experimental condition, the owner pretended to cry and in the control condition, the owner hummed.…”

“…Evidence that the owner's distress increased the stress of the dog in Carballo's [37] and Sanford's experiments [36] was inconsistent. Therefore, it remains unclear whether emotional contagion leads to rescue behavior in dogs.…”

“…Given that Sanford [36] and Carballo [37] did not control for task ability, it remains unclear whether dogs prosocially rescue their owners. Moreover, these studies deployed between-subjects designs and neither study assessed whether the dog understood how to open the door.…”

Tuesdays with Worry: appreciating nature with a dog at the end of life

“…Charles (2014) remarked that dogs can provide a sense of 'ontological security' that leads to a reciprocal feeling of kinship between canine and human that is rooted in 'connectedness and belonging' (p. 726). The personal cues that Diane showed and shared with Worry invited the unique traits of her dog-ness to attend to the very specific needs Diane sought: a non-judgmental and open friend to simply spend time with (Evans-Wilday et al, 2018;Sanford, Burt, & Meyers-Manor, 2018) And now that Diane is not a regular part of our lives any longer, I find myself even more in tune with this dog, something I never thought possible. We have always had wonderful chemistry-I love her like a kid-but now I look at her as the next aging friend I have to make sure has a rewarding last few years of life.…”