Harry Frank

On the effects of domestication on canine social development and behavior

Abstract Social development and behavior are compared for 4 Eastern timber wolves (C. lupus lycaon) and 4 Alaskan Malamutes (C. familiaris). The two groups were born a year apart, but all were fostered at approximately 10 days of age on the same lactating female wolf, reared jointly by the authors and the foster mother, housed in the same facility, and subjected to the same regimen of maintenance and social contact with adult members of the animal colony. It is suggested that many of the observed group differences can be attributed to selection in domestic dogs for prolongation of juvenile behavior and morphological characteristics. Discussion then focuses on the evolution and ontogeny of ritualized aggression in wolves and the effects of domestication on agonistic behavior in domestic dogs. It is suggested that the disintegration of ritualized aggression in dogs is, in part, a consequence of neotenization. Also implicated in the breakdown of this behavioral system is human provision of food, which relaxes (1) the behavioral consequences of injuries sustained in fighting and (2) the selective advantage enjoyed by group-hunting species who have evolved social systems of population regulation.

Comparison of problem-solving performance in six-week-old wolves and dogs

Abstract A theoretical model proposed by the first author ( Frank 1980 ) hypothesizes that timber wolves (Canis lupus) should perform better than dogs (C. familiaris) on problem-solving tasks requiring ‘insight’, such as the detour test devised by Kohler (1927) and adapted by Scott & Fuller (1965) for use with 6-week-old domestic dog pups. Three barrier problems (short barrier, long barrier, and U-barrier) were administered to four 6-week-old Eastern wolf (C. l. lycaon) pups. Post hoc comparisons with results obtained by Scott & Fuller confirm the hypothesis.

Motivation and insight in wolf (Canis lupus) and Alaskan malamute (Canis familiaris): Visual discrimination learning

Hand-reared wolves performed better than Alaskan malamutes and maternally reared wolves on Wisconsin General Test Apparatus (WGTA) measures of oddity learning. Differences between the two groups of wolves are interpreted as motivational. Differences between the hand-reared wolves and the malamutes contradicted predictions that dogs should perform better than wolves on training tasks and suggested that the WGTA tasks are amenable to either trial-and-error (“associative”) solutions typical of training-task performance or complex cognitive (“insight”) solutions more typically observed in problem-solving performance. Accordingly, the hypotheses were tested that (1) insightful solutions produce more rapid acquisition than noninsightful (i.e., associative) solutions, and (2) wolf performance exhibits more insight than does malamute performance. Both hypotheses were confirmed.

Relationship of shame and guilt to gender and parenting practices.

Abstract This study examines individual, joint and interaction effects of gender and six clusters of parenting practices on shame and guilt evoked by five clusters of scenarios: Impersonal Transgression, Harm to Another Person, Trust Violation, Social Impropriety, and Exposed Inadequacy. Women expressed significantly higher shame and guilt than men toward all scenario clusters. Womens responses were affected little by the parenting practices of either parent. Largely consistent with earlier findings, feelings of shame and guilt correlated positively with factors of Identification, Empathy Induction, Protective Interdependence, and Competency Interdependence, and correlated negatively with Physical Coercion and Psychological Coercion factors, particularly for men. Multiple regressions, however, found far fewer of these relationships significant. Identification, Physical Coercion, and Protective Interdependence parenting had almost no effect on shame or guilt for men or women, contrary to historical assumptions. The frequently reported negative relationship between corporal punishment and shame and guilt hence may be due more to the denigration of Psychological Coercion that generally accompanies corporal punishment than to corporal punishment itself.

American responses to five categories of shame in Chinese culture: A preliminary cross-cultural construct validation

Abstract Bedford (1994) presents ethnographic evidence for five distinct forms of shame in Chinese language and culture. This study attempted to determine (1) whether these forms of shame were distinct emotional responses or linguistic categories identifying shame-appropriate circumstances and (2) whether these five forms of shame are affectivily distinguishable by Americans, given that Americans typically use fewer categories in describing shame. Nine scenarios written to capture the five forms of shame were rated on 28 affect descriptors by 85 American Ss. The descriptor means were calculated across Ss for each scenario and the inter-scenario correlations were submitted to a 5-factor principal axis factor analysis. Of the 45 factor pattern coefficients generated by oblimin rotation, only two coefficients on a single scenario were inconsistent with the a priori grouping of scenarios, suggesting that Americans are as capable as Chinese of experiencing distinct varieties of shame, even though the distinctions may not arise in everyday life nor be reflected in ordinary English usage. Implications for the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis are discussed.

Inhibition training in wolves and dogs.

A theoretical model previously proposed by the first author hypothesizes that dogs (C. familiaris) should perform better than wolves (C. lupus) on training tasks in which (1) cues are arbitrarily selected by the experimenter, (2) reinforcement is administered by the experimenter, and (3) the to-be-learned behavior has no perceptible, functional connection with the reinforcement. To test this hypothesis, four Eastern wolf pups (C. l. lycaon) and four Alaskan Malamute pups (C. familiaris) were administered a passive inhibition task at seven weeks of age and an active inhibition test (leash training) at 11 weeks of age. Significant differences in the predicted direction were obtained for all task variables.

Wolves, dogs, rearing and reinforcement: complex interactions underlying species differences in training and problem-solving performance.

Frank and Frank et al. (1982–1987) administered a series of age-graded training and problem-solving tasks to samples of Eastern timber wolf (C. lupus lycaon) and Alaskan Malamute (C. familiaris) pups to test Frank’s (Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 53:389–399, 1980) model of the evolution of information processing under conditions of natural and artificial selection. Results confirmed the model’s prediction that wolves should perform better than dogs on problem-solving tasks and that dogs should perform better than wolves on training tasks. Further data collected at the University of Connecticut in 1983 revealed a more complex and refined picture, indicating that species differences can be mediated by a number of factors influencing wolf performance, including socialization regimen (hand-rearing vs. mother-rearing), interactive effects of socialization on the efficacy of both rewards and punishments, and the flexibility to select learning strategies that experimenters might not anticipate.

Food reinforcement versus social reinforcement in timber wolf pups

Completion times for food-reinforced trials and socially reinforced trials were recorded for problem-solving tasks performed by 4 Eastern timber wolf pups (Canis lupus lycaon) at 6 and at 13 weeks of age. All subjects posted shorter times for socially reinforced trials on both tasks. Results are discussed in terms of species-specific constraints on learning.

Socialized vs. Unsocialized Wolves (Canis lupus) in Experimental Research

The antiquity of man’s interest in wild animal behavior is documented in upper Paleolithic cave drawings, which faithfully depict not only the color and form of the animals he hunted, but also their gait, posture, and social expression. Indeed, Geist (1978) suggests that man’s capacity to survive the decline of Pleistocene megafauna was largely dependent on his ability to record and predict patterns of game migration and adapt his weaponry to changing predator-defense behaviors. With the rise of systematic agriculture, animal behavior occupied a less central role in human affairs, but remained a topic of continued fascination. Much of Aristotle’s Biological Treatises, for example, is devoted to topics familiar to any contemporary student of behavioral biology: locomotion, reproduction, behavioral organization, and so forth.

Relationship of belief systems to shame and guilt

Abstract This study examines the relationship of the four belief systems of extrapersonalism, cynicism, egoism and contextualism as treated by Harvey and associates to shame and guilt evoked by five clusters of scenarios: dishonesty, harm to another person, trust violation, social impropriety and exposed inadequacy. Extrapersonalists reported the strongest guilt of the four systems from dishonesty, greater shame than cynics and egoists, but not contextualists, from social impropriety, and greater shame from exposed inadequacy than contextualists, but not cynics or egoists. Cynics reported less guilt from harm to another person than extrapersonalists, egoists or contextualists, and less guilt from trust violation than extrapersonalists or egoists. Of the three belief systems test definers of each system, all definers of extrapersonalism correlated significantly positively with guilt from the cluster dishonesty but nonsignificantly with guilt from harm to another person and trust violation as well as with shame from exposed inadequacy. All definers of cynicism correlated significantly negatively with guilt from harm to another person and trust violation, but near zero with shame from social impropriety and exposed inadequacy. All three BST definers of egoism correlated significantly positively with guilt from harm to another person and trust violation and with shame from Exposed Inadequacy, but nonsignificantly with guilt from dishonesty and shame from social impropriety. Only one definer of contextualism correlated significantly with feelings from any scenario: constancy of change correlated positively with guilt from harm to another person.