1. Dog Personality traits and Human Personality Traits
Alex wright
Pennsylvania state university ’16
B.S. Psychology

2. Past research: Basic FIndings
Little research has been conducted
Most used Eysenck’s PEN survey to asses personality
Positive correlation: An owner’s personality linked to a dog’s behavior
Neurotic owners – overexcited and anxious dogs
Emotionally attached/involved owners – dominant or aggressive dogs
Submissive owners – dominant or aggressive dogs
Owner personality has an effect on attention

3. Dog Behavior Dog behavior shaped based on the dog’s purpose
Interactive and extraverted owners may obtain dog for exercise, showing, or breeding – results in less aggressive behavior; established dominance
Reserved or territorial owner’s often acquire a dog as a guard or means of protection – results in aggressive and dominant behavior
(JAGOE & SERPELL, 1996)

4. DOG PERSONALITY AND THE MATCHING HYPOTHESIS
Had students rate themselves and their dogs in terms of personality
Dogs were rated to a similar degree, suggesting their owner’s perceived them to have the same personalities
Supports matching hypothesis
Students with “personality disturbance(s)” more likely to have dog’s with behavioral problems
Neurotic owners had dogs that showed displacement and overexcited behaviors.
Psychological use and coping
Inconsistent reward and punishment
(o’farrell, 1997)

5. DOMINANCE AGGRESSION AND DISPLACEMENT
Interviewed 50 dog owners
Assessed personality of owner and dog
Biggest complaint among owners – dominance aggression
Dominance Aggression
Attachment and involvement
Submissive personality
Reciprocity in personality
Displacement Behavior
Taking out emotions
High states of emotion and conflict
Inconsistent rewards and punishments
(o’FARRELL, 1987)

6. ATTENTIVE BEHAVIOR Assessed owner personality via questionnaire
Focused on open, agreeable, extraverted and neurotic traits
Watched stranger-dog interactions
Neurotic owners: gestural and verbal commands, dogs obeyed quickly, stared for a longer period of time at stranger
Extraverted owners: dogs received more praise, stared at stranger for long period of time
Agreeable owners: More time staring at ball than stranger
(Kis, Turcsán, & Gácsi, 2012)

7. Other findings
Study looked at Big Five traits among species after doing a cross-species comparison of personality traits
Found neurotic and anxious personalities correlated with dogs who were more aggressive or displayed behavior problems – response to owner’s anxiety
(Podberscek et al., 2005)
Study done in Hungary and Austria
Big Five and Canine Big Five Inventory
Positive correlations in all Big 5 dimensions between owners and dogs (strongest for neuroticism and extraversion)
Dogs more like their owners than to any given stranger
(Turcsan et al., 2012)

8. Personality Traits in Dogs
Research (Gosling et al., 2003) suggests that dogs exhibit the following Big Five Traits:
Openness,
Extraversion,
Agreeableness
Neuroticism.
Conscientiousness not found
More recent work has developed a personality scale specifically for dogs.

9. Which Big Five factors are present in the DPQ?
Aggression
Excitement
Fear
Attentiveness

10. Personality traits in dogs and huMANS
Aggression
Low Agreeableness
Excitement
High Extraversion
Fear
High Neuroticism
Attentiveness
High Conscientiousness
High Openness to Experience

11. How did you Rate Patton?
Woof woof!

12. Love attachment styles and pets
Love Styles: Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, Agape
Purpose: Apply romantic relationship love styles to the human- dog relationship.
Based on the original love attachment scale, a pet love attachment scale was developed
The pet love attachment scale will assess people’s love style/attitude towards pets
Hypothesis: Positive correlation between people’s human love styles and pet love styles
Ex: Storgic love style with romantic partner, also Storgic love style with pet.