William Atkins
Thursday, 08 January 2009 20:24
Science -
Biology
Page 1 of 3
An Austrian study has concluded that dogs do not like it when they perform tricks for humans and they are not rewarded fairly. Do you think they will form unions and hire lawyers to reverse this canine unfairness?
Friederike Range, Lisa Horn, and Lugwig Huber (from the Department of Neurobiology and Cognition Research at the University of Vienna, Austria) and Zsofia Viranyi, from the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (Altenberg, Austria) studied domesticated dogs as they performed tricks.
The dogs were either rewarded for their work or not rewarded.
The researcher's paper “
The absence of reward induces inequity aversion in dogs” was published in the December 8, 2008 online version of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and in print on January 6, 2009 (volume 106, number 1, page 340-345).
Within the paper, the researchers stated,
“One crucial element for the evolution of cooperation may be the sensitivity to others' efforts and payoffs compared with one's own costs and gains."
"Inequity aversion is thought to be the driving force behind unselfish motivated punishment in humans constituting a powerful device for the enforcement of cooperation.”
They also stated,
“Recent research indicates that non-human primates refuse to participate in cooperative problem-solving tasks if they witness a conspecific obtaining a more attractive reward for the same effort. However, little is known about non-primate species, although inequity aversion may also be expected in other cooperative species.”
Page two talks about the interesting results of their experiment with dog tricks and treats.
