I was getting
caught up on some professional reading today, and was rewarded with a couple
chuckles from this
article:
Roy, M.M. &
Christenfeld, N.J.S. (2004). Do dogs resemble their owners? Psychological
Science, 15, 361-363.
So, do dogs resemble
their owners?
Three dog parks were
visited. Forty-five owners were photographed; their dogs were photographed
separately. "Owners were photographed from the waist up, facing forward,
wearing whatever clothes they had chosen for going to the park and whatever
facial _expression_ they chose for the picture. Dogs were photographed
facing forward, with the whole dog visible; they made whatever facial _expression_
they chose, exhibiting rather more lolling tongues than the owners."
They found that
judges did a pretty good job at matching dog owners with their dogs, but only if
the dog was a purebreed. "The judges did not make correct matches by simply
matching hairy people with hairy dogs, or big people with big dogs. There
was some suggestion that people and pets were similar in apparent friendliness,
but the effect was of modest size, and not statistically significant. It
may be that the judges used some other more subtle trait, or based their
judgments on a more configural analysis of animals. We also cannot know
from these data if people can tell whether a particular person is an owner of a
dog, as opposed to, say, a weasel."
--
Sue Frantz Highline Community College
Psychology Des Moines, WA
206.878.3710 x3404 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/
Sue Frantz Highline Community College
Psychology Des Moines, WA
206.878.3710 x3404 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/
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