Follow dogs lead and model prosocial behavior in complex situations

Some people believe that dogs, as with our human children, are our mirrors . If that is so, their reflection is the fairest one of all.

Dogs embody unconditional love, patience, and acceptance to name just a few of the characteristics required of them to co-exist with their human companions. These characteristics, along with other prosocial behaviors (actions that promote social acceptance and friendship) have long been considered strictly the purview of humans, in spite of the fact that many animals exhibit similar behaviors in the wild and in captivity.

Researchers Rachel Dale, Friederike Range, and colleagues, from the Messerli Research Institute at Vetmeduni Vienna , previously demonstrated with a bar-pulling task that dogs willingly share food rewards, especially if they know the doga friend.

Generous in the face of complex tasks

This teams new research, employing a more complex task design, has demonstrated that dogs share in spite of the increased complexity of a task. In fact, the increased complexity had a positive influence on the frequency with which the dogs delivered the food reward to another dog.

This research confirms the prosocial behavior of dogs and demonstrates that they are indeed generous, but still preferring to share the bounty with familiars. Unfamiliar dogs received rewards nearly three times less often than familiar ones.

Instead of pulling on a rope, the dogs in the current study were first trained to touch a token to get a food reward for themselves. Then, they were trained to recognize two other tokens, one that would deliver a food reward for a partner dog and another that would not deliver a treat at all. This bears repeating: The dog knew first how to select a token. Then the dog knew which token to select to get a food treat for themselves, which token to select to reward another dog, and which token to select to withhold the treats. Some people think this is pretty heady stuff for a dog to comprehend and execute. That would be a person who does not live with a dog.

Presence of a partner makes dogs more likely to share

In addition to examining whether it made a difference to the donor dog whether the receiving dog was familiar or not, researchers also examined whether the presence of another dog triggered generous behavior in the donor dog. This refers to social facilitation theory, which states that animals perform more readily in the presence of conspecifics, or members of their species. Think of it as peer influence, but with activities eased or enabled by the sheer presence and comfort of a member of your group. Similar results been observed in small children and chimpanzees. Think about how nice it is to share something with someone with whom you identify; how being in the presence of a group of people like you can make you feel stronger, comfortable, and perhaps empowered.

Even when a second dog not in the receiving enclosure, but in the testing room, the donor dogs were more motivated to give a food reward. When the test dogs were alone in the room, the number of food rewards decreased.

Remaining generous in the face of complexity is a good lesson to learn from our canine family. Gaining comfort from othersthose familiar and those not yet familiaris another behavior we would be wise to emulate in these trying times. Author J.W. Stephens said it best: Let us strive to be the person our dogs think we are.