Dogs good judges of human character

IF you think your dog is just a warm fuzzy companion who never judges you‚ think again.

New research, published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, has found that your dog is able to judge you according to whether you treat other people well.

Studies have shown that by the age of one, human beings have an innate morality that develops long before they are taught how to behave.

Now comparative psychologist James Anderson‚ a researcher at Kyoto University in Japan‚ and his team have delved into the world of dogs and monkeys to see whether they too were watching with a keen eye to see who helps others and who does not.

They wanted to find whether species (besides human beings) make social evaluations in a similar way.

Testing both dogs and capuchin monkeys‚ by seeing whether they responded differently to one person who helps others compared with one who does not‚ Anderson said the results showed that mon- keys and dogs make social evaluations in a somewhat similar way to human infants.

He said: “If somebody is behaving antisocially‚ they probably end up with some sort of emotional reaction to it.”

Researchers would have dogs and monkeys witness two people behaving differently.

Person A‚ for example‚ would take some balls from someone and not give them back, whereas person B would return them.

Or the dog owner would pretend to struggle to open a can. Then two actors would appear: one would help the owner‚ the other would react passively.

The data showed that the dogs and monkeys kept choosing individuals who showed an act of kindness over those who were passive.

For the monkeys‚ it is almost like being part of TV’s Survivor.

Primatologist Frans de Waal, of Emory University‚ Georgia, said: “Monkeys in the wild are likely to use similar processes to decide which members of their group they can cooperate with.” – TMG Digital