The Development of a Psychometric Scale for the Evaluation of the Emotional Predispositions of Pet Dogs

By G. Sheppard, Daniel Mills. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2002

87 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Many pet dogs exhibit problem behaviours which can be corrected through the judicious use of positive and negative reinforcers in training. However, animals often vary in their sensitivity and response to these. It is hypothesised that this variation may offer a biological basis for discriminating between animals that develop certain types of problems (eg fears and phobias) and their response to treatment. The development of a clinical tool that uses owner report to measure individual differences in positive and negative activation in pet dogs is described. The activation scales each measured a single homogeneous construct and effectively differentiated between individuals, demonstrating variation on two dimensions. Test-retest reliability was good and the study provided evidence of validity. Normative data were calculated and may be used in future research that could provide further evidence of validity and in investigations of the underlying structure of canine behaviour disorders. The final scales comprised of 21 items, and so can be administered with little difficulty.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Genetics, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4433ef29643d4d2f578bf0f621d9e222a6b67583

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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Genetics

In Social Psychology

K. Svartberg

Citations in the corpus

Development and Validation of a Psychometric Tool forAssessing Impulsivity in the Domestic Dog ( Canis familiaris) (2011, unknown): “…& Forkman, 2002; Svartberg, Tapper, Temrin, Radesäter, & Thorman, 2005), which may otherwise be referred to as ‘temperament’ (Serpell & Hsu, 2001; Taylor & Mills, 2006), ‘character’ (Ruefenacht, Gebhardt-Heinrich, Miyake & Gaillard, 2002) and ‘emotional predispositions’ (Sheppard & Mills, 2002).”
A comparison of behaviour in test and in everyday life: evidence of three consistent boldness-related personality traits in dogs (2005, background): “Fortunately, these issues have, at least in some studies, been addressed and considered, resulting in a critical use of questionnaires that have yielded important knowledge of dog behaviour (e.g. Serpell and Hsu, 2001; Sheppard and Mills, 2002; Hsu and Serpell, 2003; Gosling et al., 2003).”
Behavioural testing in dogs: A review of methodology in search for standardisation (2006, background): “…the origin of dogs tested (e.g. laboratory colony of dogs, Cattell and Korth, 1973; guide dogs for the blind, Goddard and Beilharz, 1984; pet dogs, Sheppard and Mills, 2002); (2) the origin of the data analysed (e.g. owners’ ratings, Goodloe and Borchelt, 1998; behavioural test, Svartberg and…”