Université de Rennes 1, UMR 6552 Ethologie Animale et Humaine, Unité Mixte de Recherche CNRS, Campus de Beaulieu, Rennes, France.
PLoS One. 2009 Oct 28;4(10):e7625. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007625.
Stress at work, as shown by a number of human studies, may lead to a variety of negative and durable effects, such as impaired psychological functioning (anxiety, depression...). Horses share with humans this characteristic of working on a daily basis and are submitted then to work stressors related to physical constraints and/or more "psychological" conflicts, such as potential controversial orders from the riders or the requirement to suppress emotions. On another hand, horses may perform abnormal repetitive behaviour ("stereotypies") in response to adverse life conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether the type of work the horses are used for may have an impact on their tendency to show stereotypic behaviour (and its type) outside work. Observations in their box of 76 horses all living in the same conditions, belonging to one breed and one sex, revealed that the prevalence and types of stereotypies performed strongly depended upon the type of work they were used for. The stereotypies observed involved mostly mouth movements and head tossing/nodding. Work constraints probably added to unfavourable living conditions, favouring the emergence of chronic abnormal behaviours. This is especially remarkable as the 23 hours spent in the box were influenced by the one hour work performed every day. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of potential effects of work stressors on the emergence of abnormal behaviours in an animal species. It raises an important line of thought on the chronic impact of the work situation on the daily life of individuals.
工作压力，如许多人类研究所示，可能导致各种负面和持久的影响，如心理功能受损（焦虑、抑郁等）。马与人类一样，具有每天工作的特点，因此会受到与身体限制和/或更“心理”冲突相关的工作压力源的影响，例如骑手可能有争议的命令或要求抑制情绪。另一方面，马可能会对不良的生活条件做出异常的重复行为（“刻板行为”）。在本研究中，我们调查了马所从事的工作类型是否会对其在工作外表现刻板行为（及其类型）的倾向产生影响。对 76 匹马在同一个环境下的箱内观察发现，它们所从事的工作类型强烈影响到刻板行为的发生频率和类型。观察到的刻板行为主要涉及口部运动和头部甩动/点头。工作限制可能加重了不利的生活条件，有利于慢性异常行为的出现。这一点尤为显著，因为每天工作一小时会影响到在箱内的 23 小时。据我们所知，这是工作压力源对动物物种异常行为出现的潜在影响的第一个证据。它提出了一个重要的思路，即工作情况对个体日常生活的慢性影响。
