Wilson Beverley M, Soulsbury Carl D, Mills Daniel S
Animal Behaviour, Cognition and Welfare Group, School of Natural Sciences, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN6 7DL, UK.
Animals (Basel). 2024 Sep 19;14(18):2718. doi: 10.3390/ani14182718.
Fear and frustration are two emotions thought to frequently contribute to problem behaviour, often leading to relinquishment. Inferring these emotions is challenging as they may present with some similar general signs, but they potentially require different treatment approaches to efficiently address the behaviour of concern. Although behavioural assessment frameworks have been proposed, it is largely unknown how clinical animal behaviourists (CABs) assimilate information about the emotional state of an animal to inform their behavioural assessment. In other fields (such as both in human and veterinary medicine), the use of intuition and gut feelings, without the concurrent use of an assessment framework, can lead to higher rates of error and misdiagnosis. Therefore, this study used semi-structured interviews of ten CABs and qualitative methods to explore the ways they conceptualise, recognise and differentiate fear and frustration in dogs. Although interviewees perceived fear and frustration as negative affective states that lead to changes in an animal's behaviour, there was little consensus on the definition or identification or differentiation of these emotions. The use of a scientific approach (i.e., hypothesis-driven and based on falsification of competing hypotheses) for behavioural assessment was highly variable, with individual assessment processes often characterised by tautology, intuition, circular reasoning and confirmation bias. Assessment was typically based on professional judgment, amalgamating information on interpretation of communicative signals, motivation, learning history, breed, genetics and temperament. Given the lack of consensus in the definition of these states, it is clearly important that authors and clinicians define their interpretation of key concepts, such as fear and frustration, when trying to communicate with others.
恐惧和沮丧是两种常被认为会导致问题行为的情绪，往往会导致动物被遗弃。推断这些情绪具有挑战性，因为它们可能会表现出一些相似的一般迹象，但它们可能需要不同的治疗方法来有效解决相关行为问题。尽管已经提出了行为评估框架，但临床动物行为学家（CABs）如何吸收有关动物情绪状态的信息以指导其行为评估，在很大程度上仍是未知的。在其他领域（如人类医学和兽医学），仅依靠直觉和直觉感受而不同时使用评估框架，可能会导致更高的错误率和误诊率。因此，本研究通过对十位临床动物行为学家进行半结构化访谈并采用定性方法，来探索他们对狗的恐惧和沮丧进行概念化、识别和区分的方式。尽管受访者将恐惧和沮丧视为导致动物行为改变的负面情感状态，但对于这些情绪的定义、识别或区分几乎没有达成共识。用于行为评估的科学方法（即假设驱动并基于对相互竞争假设的证伪）的使用差异很大，个体评估过程通常具有同义反复、直觉、循环推理和确认偏差的特点。评估通常基于专业判断，综合有关交流信号的解读、动机、学习历史、品种、遗传学和气质等方面的信息。鉴于这些状态的定义缺乏共识，显然作者和临床医生在试图与他人交流时，明确界定他们对恐惧和沮丧等关键概念的解释非常重要。
