What Lies Behind A Dogs "Guilty" Look?

A nice little cautionary tale, this, about our human tendency to read things into animals' behaviour that are in fact a projection of our own emotions. It's called anthropomorphism. How many times have you come home to be greeted by a shifty, guilty- looking dog only to discover a chewed up wardrobe or other signs of devastation, or the remains of what was to be tonight's joint of lamb lying in a corner? Do dogs give the game away by the guilt on their faces? According to Alexandra Horowitz, a professor from Barnard College, New York, this is not always the case. She set up and experiment where owners were asked to leave a room after ordering their dogs to leave a treat alone. On return, some owners were told their dogs had eaten the treat, when they had not, others were told their dog had been as good as gold. It turned out that the perceived guilty demeanor of the dog had little or nothing to do with whether or not it had eaten the treat. In fact, innocent dogs, admonished by their owners, behaved more "guiltily" than miscreants. Thus, says physorg "the dog's guilty look is a response to their owner's behaviour and not necessarily appreciative of its own misdeeds."

This ability to anthropomorhpize animals' behaviour extends from dog owners to cognitive psychologists - and is the bane of the trade. If there is some superficial apparent similarity in behaviour it is easy to assume that it is safe to interpret the animals' actions in human terms, attributing high-order emotions like guilt, remorse or embarrassment to them and assuming common neurobiological mechanisms underpinning these displays of emotions. Psychologists beware!