狗狗物語: 好狗仔也會羨慕嫉妒恨

Any dog owner would testify that dogs are just as prone to jealousy as humans.

任何狗主人都能作證，狗狗簡直和人一樣容易嫉妒。

But can one really compare Othello’s agony to Roscoe’s pique?

但真的有人能把羅斯科(Roscoe)的憤懣與奧賽羅(Othello)的痛苦相提並論嗎？

The answer, according to Christine Harris, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, is that if you are petting another dog, Roscoe is going to show something that Dr. Harris thinks is a form of jealousy, even if not as complex and twisted as the adult human form.

加州大學聖迭戈分校(University of California, San Diego)的心理學家克里斯蒂娜·哈里斯(Christine Harris)表示，答案是，如果你撫摸另一隻狗，羅斯科會有某種表現。哈里斯博士認爲，這種表現是嫉妒的一種形式，儘管這種形式不像成年人類的嫉妒形式那麼複雜、扭曲。

Other scientists agree there is something going on, but not all are convinced it is jealousy. And Roscoe and the rest of his tribe were, without exception, unavailable for comment.

其他一些科學家也認同這種情形下會出現某種情況，但並不都相信那是嫉妒。而羅斯科和他的同類，無一例外均不便發表評論。

Dr. Harris had been studying human jealousy for years when she took this question on, inspired partly by the antics of her parents’ Border collies. When she petted them, “one would take his head and knock the other’s head away,” she said. It certainly looked like jealousy.

在遇到這個問題時，哈里斯博士已經對人類的嫉妒情緒進行了多年研究。當時，她部分是受了父母的邊境牧羊犬表現出的怪異行爲的啓發。她說，當她撫摸他們時，“其中一隻會用頭把另外一隻的頭擠開”。這種情形看上去當然像嫉妒了。

But having studied humans, she was aware of different schools of thought about jealousy. Some scientists argue that jealousy requires complex thinking about self and others, which seems beyond dogs’ abilities. Others think that although our descriptions of jealousy are complex, the emotion itself may not be that complex.

但因爲已經對人類進行了研究，她瞭解有關嫉妒的不同思想流派。一些科學家認爲，嫉妒要求有能力對自身和他人進行復雜思考，這似乎超出了狗狗的能力。其他一些人則認爲，儘管我們對嫉妒的描述頗爲複雜，但這種情感本身或許並不複雜。

Dog emotions, as owners perceive them, have been studied before. In one case, Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist who is an adjunct associate professor at Barnard College and the author of “Inside of a Dog,” found that the so-called guilty look that dogs exhibit seemed to be more related to fear of punishment.

以前就有人研究過主人眼中狗狗的情感。在其中一項研究中，著有《一隻狗的內心》(Inside of a Dog)的認知科學家、巴納德學院(Barnard College)客座副教授亞歷山德拉·霍羅威茨(Alexandra Horowitz)發現，狗狗表現出來的所謂的內疚表情似乎與害怕受到懲罰更相關。

Dr. Harris ventured into the tricky turf of dog emotion by devising a test based on work done with infants.

哈里斯博士以針對孩子的研究工作爲基礎，設計了一個試驗，大膽進入了狗的情感這個棘手領域。

When dog owners petted and talked to a realistic stuffed dog that barked and whined, the people’s own dogs came over, pushed the person or the stuffed dog, and sometimes barked. After the experiment, many of the dogs sniffed the rear end of the stuffed dog, suggesting, Dr. Harris said, that the dogs thought it might be real.

當狗主人撫摸一隻逼真的、能吠叫併發出嗚嗚聲的填充玩具狗，並與其說話時，他們自己的狗會走過來，推自己的主人或那隻玩具狗，有時還會大叫。試驗結束後，許多狗狗會嗅那隻填充玩具狗的臀部。哈里斯博士稱，這表明，那些狗狗以爲玩具狗可能是一隻真狗。

Dr. Harris also recorded what happened as the owners petted and talked to a jack-o’-lantern and read a children’s book aloud, to see if any old distraction would provoke a reaction. The dogs paid little attention to the jack-o’-lantern and very little to the book.

爲了看看隨便什麼通常分散注意力的事情會不會讓它們有所反應，哈里斯還記錄了狗主人在撫摸南瓜燈籠並和它說話，以及大聲朗讀兒童讀物時發生的情況。那些狗少有注意燈籠的，對那本書，狗狗的關注度則更小。

Dr. Harris concluded, in a paper in PLoS One written with Caroline Prouvost, also at the University of California, San Diego, that the dogs showed a “primordial” form of jealousy, not as complex as the human emotion, but similar in that there is a social triangle and the dog is trying to make sure it, not the rival, receives the attention.

在與同在加州大學聖迭戈分校任職的卡羅琳·普魯沃(Caroline Prouvost)共同撰寫，並發表在《公共科學圖書館·綜合》(PLOS One)的一篇文章中，哈里斯得出結論稱，那些狗表現出了一種“原始”形式的嫉妒，不像人類的嫉妒那麼複雜。但它也是發生在一種社會三角關係之中，狗狗會嘗試確定獲得關注的是自己，而不是對手，因此這種情感與人類的嫉妒類似。

Other scientists had mixed reactions to the work. Dr. Horowitz said she admired the goal but thought the researchers had not shown that the behaviors observed actually indicated jealousy.

其他科研人員對這項研究的反響各異。霍羅威茨博士說，她很欣賞該研究的目標，但她認爲，研究者沒能證明，被觀察到的行爲真的代表嫉妒。

“What can be shown is that dogs seem to want an owner’s attention when there is attention being given out,” she said. “This study confirms that.”

“可以被證明的是，當主人向外界給予關注的時候，狗狗似乎想要得到這種關注，”她說，“這項研究證實了這一點。”

Sybil Hart, at Texas Tech, who has studied jealousy in infants, said she thought the research was “very well done and makes a very compelling argument.”

德克薩斯理工大學的西比爾·哈特(Sybil Hart)曾經研究過嬰兒的嫉妒心理。哈特說，她認爲這項研究“做得很出色，觀點令人信服”。

If one sees jealousy in babies and dogs, she said, “to some degree, it’s innate,” which would be important to know for attempts to manage human jealousy.

哈特說，如果人們發現了嬰兒和狗狗的嫉妒之心，“在一定程度上，這是天生的”。瞭解這一點對於管理成人的嫉妒情緒十分重要。

“Over all, trying to make it go away has not been very successful,” Dr. Hart said. “We are trying to eliminate jealousy, and scientists are saying maybe we should try to understand it better.”

“總的來說，消除嫉妒心理的努力並不是非常成功，”哈特博士說。“我們正努力消除嫉妒情緒，而科學家告訴我們，或許我們應該試着更好地理解它。”

Jealousy, Dr. Harris wrote in the study, is “the third leading cause of nonaccidental homicide across cultures.”

哈里斯在研究中寫道，嫉妒“在許多文化中都是故意殺人案的第三大誘因”。

Whatever the dogs’ behavior is called, said Brian Hare, a director of the Duke Canine Cognition Center at Duke University, there are practical implications for their owners.

杜克大學杜克犬科動物認知研究中心(Duke Canine Cognition Center at Duke University)的主任布賴恩·黑爾(Brian Hare)說，無論犬類的這種行爲被稱作什麼，對他們的主人而言，都會存在一些實實在在的影響。

“Attention seeking can lead to jealousylike behavior in dogs that includes aggression in some cases,” he said. “So for dogs with suspected aggression problems, it may be important to avoid situations where they feel ignored.”

“尋求關注可以引發狗狗類似於嫉妒的表現，比如有時候出現攻擊性，”他說。“因此，對於可能有攻擊性問題的狗狗來說，避免讓他們感到被忽略也許十分重要。”