Category Archives: aggression happens

March 23, 2009 · 6:02 pm

"What’s she like, eh?"


Growing up as a Navy kid, always just passing through, obliged to travel light, I took to collecting figures of speech–especially animal metaphors–along with my menagerie of stuffed animals. England in the early ’60s was a particularly rich hunting ground: “Get them, swanning about!” “Don’t try to weasel out of it!” “Listen to me, rabbiting on!” “He just wolfed down his dinner!” “She just catted up on the pavement!” I could go on like this till the cows come home…

Back in the States, in collegiate Animal Houses, young people were busy horsing around, pigging out, or bird-dogging another’s girlfriend (thereby qualifying as a snake-in-the-grass). These examples are all negative attributions, whose underlying belief is that a human’s “best behavior” should be angelic, rather than beastly. The field of Ethology begs to differ, finding ever more examples of animals behaving in ways heretofore believed to be uniquely human. Many species demonstrate altruism for vulnerable members of their “reference group”; and recent studies have confirmed dogs’ intolerance for favoritism, and primates’ capacity for premeditated stone-throwing.

It is my view, after more than three decades of clinical practice, that humans deny their “animal” urges at their own peril–especially their urges towards aggressive (antisocial) behavior. Ever since the publication of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the notion of a wolf-man has become a common metaphor for a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing hypocrite, whose conscious persona is self-righteous, but whose unconscious antisocial behavior is acted out–when the moon is full, or the keg is empty. “Who knew?” the shocked neighbors of the homicidal maniac du jour are inevitably quoted in the media. “He/she seemed so nice.”

In several clinical settings, civilian and military, I have been the designated “Wizard” (a Marine Corps term), to whom hapless individuals, who have violated their own (or society’s) code of conduct are sent for Anger Management counseling. I began with a current theoretical model that holds that anger is a secondary emotion, arising in response to a primary irritant–most often either humiliation or fear. To use a Cockney idiom, something you do “Gets right up my nose!” My animal metaphor for this was our purebred but long-haired German Shepherd, Lili–the runt of a litter ten–who was oh so meek and mild at 4 months, but by 6 months showed signs of what dog trainers call “fear aggression.” As my “Angry Young Men” [not all young, not all men] Group pointed out, humiliation and fear aren’t the only irritants. There is (the tort lawyer’s bread & butter) pain & suffering; and there is (Lili’s pet peeve) intrusion. She’s tall, dark & shaggy–occasionally mistaken for a wolf–fearing only the vet. What gets right up her nose is the intrusion of other dogs and/or delivery vans into “her” territory.

[To be continued in the next post…]

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Filed under aggression happens, ethology, jekyll and hyde

March 23, 2009 · 11:43 pm

Something’s Up Your Nose…So What?


Lili’s vet referred us to the other kind of Vet, a former Marine, who trains dogs using Japanese, because it becomes the secret code between dog & owner, avoiding that Robert De Niro, head-tilting, “Are you talkin’ to me?” beat between command & response. Like the dog trainer icons on TV, our guy teaches that owners must become the Leader of the (Wolf) Pack, always “walking point” or “taking the con,” in situations where a dog may sense a power vacuum and decide to make a command decision, as to who may or may not pass without a hassle. The dog owner must get the dog to understand, “I’m in charge here. If I say ‘friend,’ don’t you act out ‘foe.'” But constant vigilance is exhausting, so would-be pack leaders adopt labor-saving tactics. The first: Let sleeping dogs lie. The second: Watch for signs of arousal, and prepare to react. Lili’s long, fine back hair stands up like a porcupine’s spines when she is aroused, cuing her designated pack leader to take charge and either permit or disallow a display of aggression.

The parallel response sequence for humans is, first, to acknowledge aggressive arousal. Next, to identify its source; and then to decide whether the situation merits an aggressive response. New fMRI research shows that when the brain’s alarm center (amygdala) is “lit up,” it prevents blood flow to the problem-solving & memory center (hippocampus) and to the “look-before-you-leap” center (pre-frontal cortex). Just by naming the irritant (“Fear!” or “Intrusion!”), the flow of blood can be changed, to help a human to avoid a reflexive acting out of anger and to start working out an alternative response. In other words, we humans would do well to ackowledge our “inner wolf,” to get savvy about the warning signs of its arousal, and then to engage in the parlor game of “What just got up my nose?”

The alternative is to become a werewolf: to be overtaken by unacknowledged (therefore alien-seeming) aggressive impulses, to act them out impulsively, and later to protest, “I don’t know what got into me! That (antisocial behavior) is just not who I am! I’m a better person than that!”

Oh, really? I suggest spending more time observing what stirs up the neighborhood dogs, and less time rejoicing in humans’ degrees of genetic separation from them.

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Filed under aggression happens, gets right up my nose, leading a pack, secret code

March 25, 2009 · 4:54 pm

Hayfever

When our younger daughter went out to Southern California for college, she and her East Coast classmates learned to check the daily UV-ray Index like a horoscope, and to plan their sun exposure accordingly. Back here, many consult the daily Pollen Count, to predict how much Kleenex (or antihistamine) will be needed. Likewise, using the “What’s likely to get up my nose today?” model of Anger Management, it often pays to be forewarned.

Having lived in the D.C. area several times in my life, I have come to expect that driving the Capital Beltway will provoke my anger. Obviously, I know I’m not unique in this. Just observe your fellow motorists on any badly-engineered, heavily-traveled road, and you will sense barely-controlled rage. But the irritant is not the same for every driver. For some it is the intrusion of all the other cars clogging up the artery–“Is your journey really necessary?” For others it is the humiliation of being cut off by that Beemer-driver-with-a-sense-of-entitlement. Some are enduring the pain & suffering of having skipped that pre-journey trip to the bathroom. For me, I came to realize, it was fear. Not the most confident driver, myself, I imagined the Beltway as a nightmarish rink of Bumper Cars, with everyone hellbent on bending fenders. With my amygdala in alarm mode, I would ping among the “F-triad” of not-so-great responses (flee, fight, or freeze). It’s a wonder I never had a Beltway accident, isn’t it?

So, now, armed with insight and foresight, just as I approach the ramp to the ringroad, I say (out loud, so my whole brain can hear me), “Fear!” This gets the wolf in my head to quit howling, thus enabling my pre-frontal cortex to inhibit sudden braking or swerving, and my hippocampus to reality-test about just how homicidal/suicidal my fellow motorists seem to be. (Usually, not very. Not since they caught the Beltway snipers.) I also play raucus rock music, to which I sing along, thus allowing a harmless discharge of excess adrenaline. That’s how the model works.

So, next time you’re facing a heinous car journey, try asking yourself, “What could possibly get up my nose?” It might be any one–or a combination– of the Big Four irritants; but by calling them out, you could keep the wolf from howling (amygdalar arousal) and the werewolf from prowling (going ballistic with road rage).

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April 17, 2009 · 12:19 am

"If a thing’s worth doing…"


“…it’s worth doing badly,” is a quotation attributed to the late Lord Louis Mountbatten, which I heard on holiday in the UK in the 1990s, and which changed my life. Initially, it gave me the courage to pursue the exacting sport of Dressage (imperfectly), despite having ridden horses since the age of 7. It allowed me to endure the humiliation of scathing criticism from riding instructors decades my junior, without feeling like such a loser that I gave up on the enterprise. (I even won the Reserve Championship during the year I showed.)

Today, I performed the role of Pack Leader for Lili badly. A women and her dog, whom we have encountered several times before [always with Lili bristling at the sight of her dog], appeared from over-the-hill, out-of-nowhere, at the beginning of our walk through the school playing fields to get to the woods; and before I could stop her, Lili transgressed again. The owner (correctly) rebuked me for my poor dog handling, and declared, “Your dog is vicious! ‘He’ should never be off the leash!” The good news in this anecdote is that I managed to avoid acting out my own humiliation (that I had failed to control my animal), fear (that the angry woman would take legal action against me or my dog), and intrusion: (Where did they materialized from? The field was absolutely clear when I unleashed Lili.) But the failure was that I assumed that we would be alone, and therefore free to do our own thing in the field. Needless to say, the rest of the trek was on-leash.

Since Lili clearly needs a reassertion of the message, “I’m in charge here” from me, it will be leashed walks for quite some time to come. Since I continue to believe that what gets up Lili’s nose is more intrusion than fear (of this smaller dog), I will vary the venue of our walks, so that she does not come to regard any one of them as “her” property, from which she feels entitled to exclude other dogs.

Like Freud, the prospect of being deprived of my beloved dog’s companionship [because of her misconduct or my mismanagement] causes me such pain & suffering, that I am prepared to do whatever it takes, to keep her–and others–safe from her amygdalar arousal. At least, for once, I had my own limbic system under control.

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April 29, 2009 · 9:31 pm

Crazy Like a Fox


Remember the post called Hayfever? Let’s say you wanted to avoid the common symptoms of that “dreadful lurgy,” so you invested in the latest over-the-counter nostrum for it. I know this will sound like one of Stephen Colbert’s sotto voce adverse-side-effects-warnings for a bogus health product, but I’m quoting from the PDR: “Somnolence [needing a nap RIGHT NOW], fatigue, dry mouth, pharyngitis [sore throat], dizziness, headache, GI upset/pain, cough, diarrhea, epistaxis [nosebleed], brochospasm, irritability, insomnia.” Sort of like Mexican Swine Flu in a bottle, no?

Psychodynamic theory [the kid brother to Freudian psychoanalysis] posits that whenever an individual faces a choice between two courses of action, s/he is ambivalent [“on the one hand…on the other hand”], but ultimately, s/he chooses the one that seems like “the lesser of two evils.” It is, however, a matter of personal opinion, as to which would be worse–sniffles & sneezing, or the daunting list of side-effects listed above.

Same with the Four Horsemen of What Gets Up Your Nose & Makes You Angry. We humans, as well as Lili the dog, “do the math” in our heads, calculating which of two irritants will cause us less misery, and choose accordingly. Let’s put some meat on the bones of this theory. A young woman dreads the humiliation of being judged “less than Vogue model thin,” so she opts for the pain & suffering of an Eating Disorder. A teenager cannot abide the intrusion of parental limits, so s/he runs away, opting for the fear of “being on your own, with no direction home…like a rolling stone” and having to make a deal with the skeevy dude in the song, who’s “not offering any alibis.” In either case, the casual observer might say, “You’re crazy to ruin your health, just to be a Size 2,” or “to risk your life, just to play by your own rules.” The individual who has made the choice thinks, “Yeah, crazy like a fox.”

Back in the day, I treated a young woman in Detroit who kept losing high-powered jobs because she was chronically late for work; and once there, stole money from her boss. How could this possibly be the lesser of two evils? [Even in the 90s, good jobs in Detroit did not grow on trees.] What could be worse? Well, submission to The Man was worse, in her book. She was willing to risk the financial pain & suffering of job loss, and the fear of her husband’s disapproval [that she had “screwed up again…what are you, crazy?”], rather than endure the humiliation of having to play by the same rules as everybody else. Once she grasped this, she was able to find less self-defeating ways to rebel [such as wearing a Che T-shirt under her corporate suit].

So, look at Lili and guess what trade-out of irritants she is making. Is some predator after her [causing fear]? Is there an intruder up the hill, whom she feels she must challenge? Was she told [by my husband, who took this picture] to stay put [“Zen-zen!”], and she cannot abide the humiliation of obeying his command? Actually, I am hiding behind a tree at the top of the hill, and she is rushing to join me, to avoid the pain & suffering of abandonment. [As if!]

Next time you’re faced with a Hobson’s choice of potentially risky actions, you do the math.

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Filed under aggression happens, ambivalence, lesser of two evils, understanding shenanigans

May 5, 2009 · 8:04 pm

"Crime and Punishment"


We’re talking Dostoevsky’s pre-Russian-revolution novel, which has what a Hollywood producer would call a “high-concept title” [like “Snakes on a Plane”]. We’re also talking Kohlberg’s first stage of moral development: “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” So, that Note to Self takes 22 years of living and learning to develop? [In humans, that is. Still no word on how long it takes in dogs.]

Alas, doing the Right Thing turns out to be a bit more complicated than just following the rules. To begin with, whose rules? In the Royal Navy they have a little [inside] joke: “We have a code. We don’t live by it, but we have a code.” In the 1970s Marvin Harris, an Anthropology prof at Columbia, published an instant cult classic [in my reference group, anyway]: Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches. His premise was that the Code of Conduct is not universal, but regional, often determined by geographical considerations, such as weather patterns. Thus, in the Subcontinent, where it is very dry except for the monsoon season, if no rains come one year, a farmer might be tempted to eat his draft animal, it being pointless that year to use it to plow the arid soil. Ah! But if he does, then next year when the rains come again, he will be SOL. So this culture devised the no-eating-cattle taboo, to keep the idle beasts off the menu, preserving them to plow another year. Hence, the Sacred Cow.

My generation of social scientists took this model and ran with it, seizing on every cockamamie cultural taboo we could find, and asking: “What’s the local survival payoff? Does it involve the health & safety of the community?” Thou shalt not eat oysters in months without Rs. [Hint, cuz it’s hotter then, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.] Play along at home.

Now comes along another anthropologist, Jonathan Haidt, with his 5 Moral Spheres, the relative importance of which vary by geographical region and [intriguingly] by political leaning. Liberals are all about Do No Harm to Others, and Social Justice for All; whereas Conservatives are all about Be True to Your School [or Tribe, or Reference Group], Respect Authority, and Remain Pure. This is why it takes so long to stock the brain’s Code of Conduct library. Back in the day, when people tended to live their lives where they were born, and didn’t have so much access to information about other places and their exotic folkways, it was easier to know what the Right Thing to Do was. Nowadays, not so much.

Reductionists insist that there are–always were, always will be–absolute commandments, so to speak, concerning the human Code of Conduct. “Thou shalt not kill,” for instance. Do me a favor, guv! What about combat troops? Are they supposed to kill no one? So, why do we spend so much on weapons? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Oh, so we’re cool with extreme interrogation methods being used against our troops? Once again, I invite you to play along at home. Find me a rule, in any Code of Conduct, that applies to everyone, without exception.

Which brings us back to Dostoevsky’s fictional student, Raskolnikov, a Nihilist [Remember Durkheim’s WTF anomie?], who had just written an article on moral philosophy, justifying the killing of undesirable individuals for the greater good of society. He murders a “disgusting, old, dishonest” pawnbroker, and then has to do away with her friend, who witnessed the incident. The rest of the book is a psychological cat & mouse game between the student and the detective assigned to the murder case, Porfiry Petrovitch.

So, it all depends on “when you come in to the movie,” whether you think a specific act of aggression should be lauded or condemned. In this scene, is Lili in jail for her acts of unjustified aggression, or is she policing other incarcerated individuals? Plot twist: she’s returning to the scene of her two crimes–the Lacrosse field–where the little boy “rattled her cage”and she growled at him, and where she ran up the hill to challenge the out-of-the-blue dog. Spoiler alert: Raskolnikov does, too.

So, the “second of all” thing to do, to promote development of the Pre-frontal cortex, is to learn from our own trespasses [and, far less costly, from those of compelling fictional characters]. As the London cabbie’s brain actually expands when he gains The Knowledge [the cognitive map of the city], so our Pre-frontal cortex grows, as we lay down ever more complex pathways for navigating between Right and Wrong.

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May 11, 2009 · 2:11 pm

"Hearthrug!"


Jus’ like ol’ Rhymin’ Simon says, “Detroit, Detroit got a hell of a hockey team.” In honor of whom, today’s post will use a sports metaphor. Our dog trainer left two commands to the discretion of the dog owner. The first, today’s topic, was to be in English [not Japanese], so that visitors to one’s home could easily use it [without consulting the cue card of Japanese commands we hand all who enter here]. We were to designate an area in the home as the Penalty Box, to which the dog would be sent, briefly, for incidents of “unnecessary roughness” [to borrow a sports term]. No G-water would be served there, however. In our household, typical infractions include: too vigorous herding of our 3 cats, too emphatic barking at intruding neighborhood dogs on our property, and–most egregiously–challenging guests who have been designated by the Management as “Welcome.” A second guest-challenge results in being tethered, by a longish leash, to the hearthrug area, and commanded to “Fuse” [pronounced Foo-say, lie down]; and a third challenge results in being sent off to the “locker room” [her downstairs dogroom, which is larger and more comfortably furnished than either of my kids’ college dorm rooms].

The hockey metaphor is apt, because no one in this household is kidding themselves that Lili subscribes to a policy of absolute non-violence. There is presumed in hockey to be a certain degree of “necessary roughness” [euphemized as “checking”] that is part of the game. I grew up hearing droll Midshipmen at Dahlgren Hall hockey matches chant, “Impede him! Impede him! Make him relinquish the puck!” Likewise, another old chestnut from Coronation Street is “Why keep a dog and bark, yourself?” The English telly dog trainer, Victoria Stillwell, advises that when one’s dog first barks to announce the approach to one’s home of a non-resident, one should say “Thank you!” [in our case, “Arigato!”], since that is what dogs were bred to do. Only if the dog carries on barking after being thanked, should s/he be corrected.

Let us apply this principle to the barking dog in our head [the amygdala]. It was “bred” to warn us of potential danger. [It’s just trying to keep us alive. Give it a break, already…and maybe some G-water.] Upon first noticing our hackles rise, we should be grateful. It means we’re alive and taking notice of our surroundings. Now, let’s assess the threat: pain & suffering, or just fear, or an annoying intrusion, or our old nemesis, humiliation? At this point, the barking dog should “belt up,” so we can start dealing with the situation.

But, what if it doesn’t “belt up”? What if it winds itself up into a frenzy of over-the-top, adrenaline-fuelled fury? Well, then, we need our own personal command to send it to the Penalty Box. [Coincidentally, in Cognitive Therapy, this is often called “Thought Checking.”] Here’s where the Emotive Speech Function can help. Back in the day, well-brought-up English boys were trained to say “Rats!” [as opposed to an actual oscenity or profanity], whereas girls were encouraged to say “Crumbs!” These quaint bowdlerisms are fun to collect: “Crikey!” “Gor blimey!” “Gordon Bennet!” Whatever the outcry, the meaning–to others and to oneself–is clear: “rush of blood to the head” [amygdala]…”am about to flee, fight, or freeze”…”need to chill.” Interestingly, although being told by another person to “chill” or “relax” [melded these days into “chillax”], only increases one’s sense of humiliation, telling oneself “You must chill!” is often just the ticket, to drain the adrenaline, stop flailing around, and start dealing.

Personally, these days I tell myself “Hearthrug!” [Incidentally, I have never had G-water. It might be vile. I just notice it’s what the Red Wings drink, while chillaxing in the Penalty Box.]

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May 23, 2009 · 5:56 pm

Tom Wolfe Knows


Yeah, we all know Tom Wolfe can do social satire; but until I read A Man in Full I didn’t know he could do chilling urban anthropology [Note to Self: Try not to go to jail in Alameda County.], Stoic philosophy, and more compelling redemptive narrative than Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment. I shall quote from the chapter, “Epictetus Comes to Da House.” Our hapless hero, Conrad [picture Steve Buscemi], through a series of unfortunate misunderstandings, finds himself locked up in the Santa Rita pokey [in all senses of the word], clueless how to survive. N Aff [see “The Lone Wolf” post] is the only code of conduct, and Conrad can’t find a reference group. He gets the “wrong” book sent to him–The Stoics instead of The Stoics’ Game–but discovers that Epictetus [an ancient Greek, sold into Roman slavery by his parents, who when freed became a philosopher] knows a thing or two about enduring unfair captivity. When Conrad is cornered by a Very Bad Man whose aggressive subtext is clear, he channels the wisdom of Epictetus [who says we all must die of something, sometime, but we can try to do it with our character intact]. To his own chagrin, Conrad slips into the idiom of an “Oakland homey,” [when in Rome, and all…] and tells the bully, “Hey, brother, look! You a number in here, and I’m a number in here…see…and I ain’t tryin’a disrespectchoo none…I ain’t tryin’a sweatchoo none, play you none, dog you none, or get over on you none…so ain’ no cause for nobody be playin’ me or doggin’ me or runnin’ a game on me, neither.” To find out what happens next, buy the book.

Let’s notice how much Phatic speech Conrad uses. Always a good idea, when addressing strangers, or those acting strange. A young boy’s Phatic communication once saved my life in Boston. I was on the escalator at the Back Bay train station, wearing a long, flowing muffler, when I heard the cryptic words: “Goy Lee! Goy Lee! Ya skaaf! Ya skaaf!” I deciphered this as: “Girlie! Girlie! Your scarf! Your scarf!” I then realized that I was the “Girlie,” about to do an Isadora Duncan [choke myself by getting my muffler caught in the machinery]. I yanked the flowing tail up, and shouted back, “Oh, yeah, t’anks a million, dere!” [When in Boston, and all…] If he had just yelled, “Ya skaaf! Ya skaaf!” I’da been none da wiser, an’ needin’ a wake, surely.

Also notice that Conrad is putting out the “subway subtext” [see the “Walk on the Wild Side” post]: “I am not your victim, but I am not your enemy.” Who knew, when my acting friends and I were busy devising this cool-as-a-cucumber response, that Epictetus had been there and done that 2000 years before us?

As valuable as witty ripostes and/or Stoic replies are, in the face of aggressive provocations, they do not always serve. There are, sadly, times–in my opinion and even that of Epictetus–that the appropriate response to aggression is aggression.

That’s for another post.

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Filed under aggression happens, Epictetus said..., phatic communication, reference group

May 27, 2009 · 6:59 pm

You Bet Your Life


One summer day in Manhattan, young Dick Cavett saw Groucho Marx walking down the street, and overcame his shyness for long enough to blurt out, “Mr. Marx, I’m a big fan!” Without skipping a beat [according to Cavett, whose anecdote this is], Groucho replied, “On a day like this, I could use a big fan.” Well, I’m a big fan of Groucho’s, too. Hands up, if you ever saw an original broadcast [not some archival retrospective] of his iconic quiz show, “You Bet Your Life.” The least important aspect of the show was the actual quiz. It was all about Groucho’s gift for ad libs [many of which had to be edited out before broadcast] and the challenge to the contestants, “Say the secret ‘woid’ and win $100.” A stuffed duck with specs, mustache, and cigar [the forerunner of the Vlasic pickle stork] would drop down on a wire, to show the audience the random word whose utterance would earn far more than correct answers on the quiz. How like life, eh?

Well, the other word [besides the “penalty box” command] that our dog trainer had us choose for ourselves, was the “attack” command. It had to be–as opposed to Groucho’s secret word–unlikely to come up in normal conversation [and so inadvertantly “loose the dog of war”]. He suggested, therefore, that it be foreign. Each of us had to come up with something unique for our own dog, lest we launch the whole pack, while learning to use the command in class. You can just imagine, can’t you? “Bonzai!” “Tora! Tora! Tora!” Ours is the Japanese for “evil.” [You could look it up.]

Like learning to use any weapon responsibly, this training was both technical and philosophical. I was appalled by the insouciant tone of the Drivers’ Ed our two kids received [one in Michigan, one in Maryland], compared to the lugubrious, required-course-in-high-school that my sister and I took in the 60s, where each class began with the call & response: “When you are driving a car, you are in charge of…” “A Lethal Weapon.” I felt compelled to invoke this reality check every time my kids took the wheel…still want to. Well, when we are out with Lili, we are…in charge of a Dangerous [if not Lethal] Weapon. We well and truly must “acknowledge our wolf,” if we are to keep everyone safe. As our trainer points out, dark dogs are usually perceived as male and more vicious than light-colored dogs. [Especially pointy-eared dogs, compared to Lab types.] This puts out a provocative subtext, which the dark-dog-owner must “own” and learn to manage, whatever the “truth” of the matter is.

Now, here’s the ironic thing about Lili. During Agitation Classes [where you learn to deploy the “attack” command] she was a Paper Tiger. The linebacker dude in the padded suit with the canvas “bite me” sleeve would mock-assault me, and Lili would either look away or try to hide behind me. Away from me–just dog-and-dude–her attack response was [eventually] evoked, and then paired with her secret word. She is no Stoic, our Lili. She would not come to the defense of the defenseless, unless she personally felt threatened. In this respect, her nature is all too human.

Lili is not my bodyguard [never thought I needed one, anyway]; but she is my character guide. As a recovering Paper Tiger, myself [“all bark and no bite,” as my husband has been known to describe me], I continue to challenge my hair-trigger amygdala, to see if my alarm in any given situation is exaggerated, or justified. Would I cry “Havoc!” and use aggressive means to defend myself or my family from a Very Bad Person, if all other options had failed? You bet your life.

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June 2, 2009 · 7:16 pm

"Das ist nicht FAIR!"


My globe-trotting elder daughter brought me back a German dog journal, which made the transcontinental haul back from SoCal seem to “fly by”–despite a rowdy class of 8th-graders in the cheap seats, two screaming Pre-Ks in front of us, and an in-flight entertainment system on the fritz–as I brushed up my German vocab and translated the HundeTrendMagazin cover-to-cover. My favorite article, with the title as written above [last word in English], summarizes the recent research of Dr. Friederike Range @ the University of Vienna into Inequity Aversion in dogs. [You can read her article, in English, featuring 3 priceless pictures of the “striking” dog, @ http://www.nc.univie.ac.at/cognition-research/animals/dogs/projects. ] Before we get to her findings, she also is co-founder of the Wolf Science Center, whose website is: http://www.wolfscience.at/english/about_us/friederike_range.html. Check out how much “Shima” the Wolf looks like Lili.

So @ the Clever Dog Lab, two dogs who were buddies were seated side-by-side and each asked, “Gib Pfote!” [“Give me a paw!”] Sometimes the reward was a piece of sausage, and other times, a piece of bread. No difference in compliance was noted. Then the black & tan dog was given the bread, but the black & white was not. So, he went on strike: “Nicht mit mir” [“Not with me”] they captioned his averted-gaze body language. Earlier studies with primates had shown that even a distinction in the value of the treat–a cucumber chunk (meh) vs a grape (yum)–was enough to send the slighted monkey into a fury. Not only did he refuse to exchange a pebble for the treat, he threw both the cuke and the pebbles back at the trainer! The dog didn’t appear to get miffed until no treat of any kind was offered to him, while his buddy did get something.

This is a variation on the theme of the Zero-Sum-Game, where the trainer suddenly changes the rules in the middle of proceedings. We go from a day’s pay for a day’s work, to We’re-having-a-party-and-you’re-not-invited. Well, how would you feel? Correction–how have you felt? Who hasn’t been there, done that? They schmize you into believing your school or your job [or Britain’s Got Talent] is a meritocracy, and then they play favorites! All of a sudden, black & white is uncool, and black & tan is all that. In vain, you gave your paw with the same enthusiasm and reliability as your pal. He turns out to be the teacher’s pet! What’s up [your nose] with that?

At the very least, humiliation, innit? Probably also intrusion. The powers-that-be have taken away your rightful piece of bread and given it to old used-to-be-your-pal, Black & Tan, who looks set to scoff the whole loaf…which, if true, could lead to hunger [pain & suffering], or worse [fear]–starvation! So what do you do? If you’re a dog, you avert your gaze and keep all paws planted firmly on the ground. How tame! [Especially compared to the miffed monkey.] This is the canine version of a sit-down strike–a form of passive resistance [when Gandhi did it] or passive aggression [when a disgruntled employee does it].

The very phrase “disgruntled employee” conjures up images of humans who have decided to “Go Postal” and take revenge–not only on the invidious “(bread)-winner”–but on everyone within their line of sight. Dogs, it seems, are more Stoic than that. They simply refuse to perform tricks anymore for The Man.

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Filed under aggression happens, ethology, gets right up my nose, semiotics, zero-sum-gaming