Abstract

Social dominance is an important and widely used concept, however, different interpretations have led to ambiguity in the scientific literature and in popular science. Even though in ethology dominance is an attribute of dyadic encounters, and not a characteristic of the individual, ‘dominance’ has often been referred to as a personality trait in animals. Since few studies have specifically examined the link between personality traits and dominance status, we investigated this in dogs living in multi-dog households using a questionnaire, which required owners to specify whether the dog had a dominant or submissive status, and comprised items of both the features of the individual (i.e. personality traits) and previous social experience (interactions with group members and strangers). Four distinct personality factors emerged from 23 behavioural items by principal component analysis, labelled as assertiveness, trainability, intraspecific aggression and independence. Binomial logistic regression was used to examine how the demographic information of the dogs and the personality factors predicted the owner’s estimate of the dog’ status as dominant or submissive. The personality factor assertiveness accounted for 34% of the variance in dominance status, trainability 5% and dog age contributed 4%. Dogs perceived as dominant scored more highly on the factors assertiveness and trainability, which can help explain why ‘dominance’ has often been suggested to be a personality trait, rather than a dyad-specific social status according to different traditions in behavioural research. Similar to the ‘social dominance’ trait in humans, owner ascribed dominance showed a quadratic trajectory in cross-sectional mean change across the lifespan, increasing during adulthood and then maintaining high levels until old age. Overall, our study proposes a multifactorial background of dominance relationships in pet dogs, suggesting that not only previous experience of social interactions between individuals but also age and personality traits influence owner perceived dominance status in multi-dog households.

Highlights

  • Dominance is used to describe social relationships among group-living animals

  • In some studies in animals, if a behavioural factor identified through factor analysis associated with dominance status or rank, it was often labelled as ‘dominance’ [5], which contributed to the ambiguity around the term, leading to the assumption that dominance is a personality trait

  • Our study suggests a multifactorial background of dominance relationships in pet dogs

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Summary

Introduction

Dominance is used to describe social relationships among group-living animals. It is an important and widely used concept, there is little agreement regarding its meaning, and different interpretations have often led to ambiguity in the scientific literature and in popular science. In some studies in animals, if a behavioural factor identified through factor analysis associated with dominance status or rank, it was often labelled as ‘dominance’ [5], which contributed to the ambiguity around the term, leading to the assumption that dominance is a personality trait. Dominance is often referred to as a personality trait of dogs, both in the literature [2] and by laymen [12,13] This misuse of the term has contributed to the rise of dominance related aversive training techniques, such as hitting, shaking, growling, staring, and using other physical force, such as the ‘alpha roll’, and the ‘dominance down’; all of which in most cases provoke fearful or defensively aggressive behaviour in the dog [14]

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