While dogs are well known for their emotional attunement to humans, a new study by Carolina Generoso and colleagues explores whether they can use communication to elicit help for someone else. Published in the journal Animals, the study tested whether dogs would try to communicate with an experimenter to gain access to a person—an actor—who appeared to be crying behind a barrier.
Seventy-nine dogs participated in the experiment, which involved two main conditions. In one, the actor behind the barrier cried while talking; in the other, she simply spoke on the phone. Dogs showed significantly more visual communicative behaviors (such as gaze alternation and direct looking) when the actor was crying, suggesting the dogs recognized a need and attempted to involve a human helper.
Crucially, the strength of the dogs’ communication was influenced by prior interaction. When the crying actor had previously played with or petted the dog, the dog displayed more communicative signals compared to when no such interaction had occurred. Dogs also positioned themselves closer to the crying person, indicating emotional engagement and potential prosocial intent.
This study highlights dogs’ capacity to use communication not only to meet their own needs but also in a prosocial context, potentially to comfort or aid another individual. The researchers argue that such behavior reflects key elements of empathy, emotional cognition, and social bonding—especially in response to human distress.
These findings have implications for our understanding of the emotional intelligence of dogs and how they may perceive and respond to complex social situations involving humans.
Source: Carolina Generoso, B. Resende, N. Albuquerque, M. P. Andrade, and C. Savalli. 2024-10-26. “Communication as a Tool for Exhibiting Prosocial Behavior in Dogs.” Animals, Volume 14.
