Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Mar 17;15(3):e0230315. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230315. eCollection 2020.
Humans do not respond to the pain of all humans equally; physical appearance and associated group identity affect how people respond to the pain of others. Here we ask if a similar differential response occurs when humans evaluate different individuals of another species. Beliefs about pain in pet dogs (Canis familiaris) provide a powerful test, since dogs vary so much in size, shape, and color, and are often associated with behavioral stereotypes. Using an on-line survey, we asked both the general public and veterinarians to rate pain sensitivity in 28 different dog breeds, identified only by their pictures. We found that both the general public and veterinarians rated smaller dogs (i.e. based on height and weight) as being more sensitive to pain; the general public respondents rated breeds associated with breed specific legislation as having lower pain sensitivity. While there is currently no known physiological basis for such breed-level differences, over 90% of respondents from both groups indicated belief in differences in pain sensitivity among dog breeds. We discuss how these results inform theories of human social discrimination and suggest that the perception of breed-level differences in pain sensitivity may affect the recognition and management of painful conditions in dogs.
人类对所有人的痛苦反应并不相同；外貌和所属群体身份会影响人们对他人痛苦的反应。在这里，我们想问的是，当人类评估另一种物种的不同个体时，是否会出现类似的差异反应。关于宠物狗（Canis familiaris）的疼痛信念提供了一个有力的测试，因为狗在体型、形状和颜色上差异很大，并且通常与行为刻板印象相关联。我们使用在线调查，要求普通公众和兽医仅通过他们的照片来评估 28 种不同犬种的疼痛敏感性。我们发现，普通公众和兽医都认为体型较小的狗（即基于身高和体重）对疼痛更敏感；普通公众受访者认为与特定品种立法相关的品种具有较低的疼痛敏感性。虽然目前还没有已知的生理基础来解释这种品种水平的差异，但两组中超过 90%的受访者表示相信不同犬种之间的疼痛敏感性存在差异。我们讨论了这些结果如何为人类社会歧视理论提供信息，并表明对品种水平疼痛敏感性差异的感知可能会影响对犬只疼痛状况的识别和管理。
