新奇事件簿 狗也有嫉妒心

Dog lovers have known since time began that pets get jealous, but now a new study has shown that it is true. A professor from the University of California conducted research into what makes dogs jealous. Dr Christine Harris first decided to investigate canine jealousy after she noticed strange behaviour among her parents' three border collies. She noticed that when she stroked two of the pooches at the same time, they became aggressive towards each other. Both dogs tried to knock her hand away from the other so they could receive maximum attention. She said: "To me, that really fit with the core motivation of jealousy….I was petting them with both my hands, not just one. They wanted exclusive attention. That got me to thinking about jealousy in dogs."

愛(ài)狗人士早就知道狗有嫉妒心，而且現(xiàn)在一項(xiàng)新研究證實(shí)了這一觀點(diǎn)。來(lái)自加利福尼亞大學(xué)的一名教授研究了引起狗的嫉妒心產(chǎn)生的因素。克麗絲汀博士在注意到自己父母的三只博得牧羊犬的奇怪行為之后，決定對(duì)狗的嫉妒心進(jìn)行研究。她注意到，當(dāng)她撫摸兩只狗的時(shí)候，三只博得牧羊犬開(kāi)始變得有攻擊性。兩只狗都想把我的手從另一只狗身上擠下來(lái)，從而讓自己能夠受到最大程度的關(guān)注。她說(shuō)，就我所知，這明顯很符合嫉妒心的核心動(dòng)機(jī)。我在用兩只手撫摸它們，而不是一只手。它們需要專一的關(guān)注。這一行為讓我想到了狗的嫉妒心。

Professor Harris adapted a jealousy test commonly used on young children. Her research team conducted tests on 36 different dogs in their homes and videoed their reactions. The dogs' owner had to read a short passage from a book while petting a toy dog that wagged its tail and a Halloween lantern. Harris wanted to see how the dogs reacted to their owner petting the toy dog, as well as looking at if they had any reaction to the petting of the lantern. She noticed that the dogs were twice as likely to be jealous of the toy dog. A third of the dogs tried to muscle in between the toy and its owner. Professor Harris thinks it is important to understand jealousy more. She said: "Jealousy is the third-leading cause of non-accidental homicide across cultures."

哈里斯教授采用了一項(xiàng)嫉妒心實(shí)驗(yàn)，這一實(shí)驗(yàn)經(jīng)常用在小孩身上。她的研究小組對(duì)36只不同的小狗做了實(shí)驗(yàn)，小狗在自己家中的反應(yīng)都被攝像機(jī)錄下來(lái)了。狗的主人需要一邊讀書上的一篇短文，一邊撫摸搖著尾巴的玩具狗和萬(wàn)圣節(jié)燈籠。哈里斯想知道，當(dāng)主人撫摸玩具狗或者燈籠的時(shí)候，其他狗的反應(yīng)。她注意到，其他狗對(duì)玩具狗基本上都非常嫉妒。三分之一的狗想擠進(jìn)玩具狗和狗主人之間。哈里斯教授認(rèn)為，更加深入地了解嫉妒心是很重要的。她說(shuō)，嫉妒心是跨文化中非偶然性自殺的第三個(gè)主要原因。