Zeitschriftenaufsatz | 2023 Open Access

The Power Is in the Word—Do Laypeople Interpret Descriptors of Dog Emotional States Correctly?

Autor:in

Heritier, Carmen; Riemer, Stefanie; Gaschler, Robert

Publikationen als Autor:in / Herausgeber:in der Vetmeduni

Riemer, Stefanie

Journal

Animals

Abstrakt

A basic understanding of dog behaviour and emotion is relevant not only for professionals, such as veterinary personnel or dog trainers, but also for dog owners and for people with little contact with dogs. Information about dog behaviour and emotions is mostly conveyed verbally. This study explores whether definitions of dog behaviour and emotion are understood in such a way that they can be allocated to a descriptor (i.e., a label such as “fearful”), even by people with low background knowledge. If people can match descriptors to definitions, this suggests that the definitions are distinct enough and elicit mental representations of behaviour that can fit the label. Good agreement on the definitions is a prerequisite for the validity of the descriptors used; however, no study to date has tested this. A sample of 236 adults was asked to match descriptors of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) for veterinary and shelter situations to their correct definitions, e.g., the descriptor “fearful” to its definition “dog may try to flee, hide or freeze; ears back”. Matching was substantially above chance; nonetheless, the mean proportion of correct responses was only 50% (SD ± 16.6%) for the veterinary QBA set and 33% (SD ± 14.3%) for the shelter QBA set. Performance in the matching task was positively correlated with measures of experience with dogs. Taken together, the results suggest that descriptor–definition pairs used to describe dog behaviour need to be clearly defined to avoid misinterpretations when teaching laypeople how to interpret canine behaviour.

Schlagwörter

QUALITATIVE BEHAVIORAL-ASSESSMENT; FARM WELFARE ASSESSMENT; EARLY EXPERIENCE; OBSERVER BIAS; DAIRY GOATS; FIXED LIST; RELIABILITY; PROTOCOL; EXPRESSIONS; ASSESSMENTS

Dokumententyp

Originalarbeit

CC Lizenz

CCBY

Open Access Type

Gold

ISSN/eISSN

2076-2615 -

DOI

10.3390/ani13193009

WoS ID

WOS:001083634800001

PubMed ID

37835615

Repository Phaidra

o:2640