Animal origins for shame, pride and guilt?

Originally posted by Darfius

I find it difficult to believe that the very first time she vomited on your carpet, that she "had her ears back and head hung low". Your negative reinforcement has her prepared to endure some sort of abuse, and she attempts to avoid this by submitting to you, just as in the wild.

Darfus you are making a big assumption not to mention the insult.....

I do not abuse my dog. I do not punish her for throwing up on the carpet. I make sure she is okay, I give lots of pats and comfort and then I clean up the mess.

The only thing violence accomplishes is to show that the person engaging in it is out of contol and lacks any creative problem solving skills.

Originally posted by Darfius
How does one observe these things? Please tell me what a prideful or shameful dog would be like if you don't think Aynat's examples are accurate?

"A sense of one's own proper dignity or value; self-respect."

Do you honestly t ...[text shortened]... mes obvious that animals cannot and do not express these emotions.[/b]

Do you honestly think dogs have a sense of of their own proper dignity? Or self-respect?

So pride, supposedly one of the seven deadly sins, is nothing more than self respect or the feeling of accomplishment you get when you achieve something worthwhile?

I don't know what dogs experience. I guess I tend to assume dogs don't experience dignity or self respect exactly, but I also tend to assume they experience some sort of primitive forms of these things. To be able to speak with any confidence I'd need to see a paper describing experiments in which these things were defined in a scientific manner and then experiments were performed testing for them.

It is common knowledge that animals have never been observed to display these emotions.

Apparently Aynat and myself, and possibly kirksey and KneverKnight, lack this "common knowledge". Regardless, common knowledge is often wrong. At one point it was common knowledge that the Earth was flat and the Sun revolved around it. I mean, you can see these things every day!

Of course, but you can't teach someone to feel guilty, or proud, or ashamed.

You can train people to feel these things in response to certain stimuli, but sure, the emotions themselves are part of being human. I think forms of these emotions exist in dogs as well.

If I run a red light, do I feel guilty? More important, does everyone? Not necessarily. It depends on the circumstance and how the person feels about the restrictions placed upon them by the red light and by extension the government and society. Some people don't feel ashamed of tripping and falling. I think if someone found money the first few times they tripped and fell they might think it's lucky and not be ashamed but instead proud. My nephew has no shame in falling - he does it intentionally to get attention.

I think you assume way too much.