ABSTRACT The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine the effects of anthropomorphism of a therapy dog on pain perception during an animal-assisted intervention. Participants were 32 college women who were randomly assigned to the anthropomorphism condition or the control condition. All participants engaged in a pretest cold pressor task to measure base-line individual differences in pain tolerance and perceptions of pain intensity and pain unpleasantness. After completing this task, participants in the anthropomorphism group engaged in a task intended to prime them to view a therapy dog anthropomorphically. Specifically, they rated photos of dogs on a series of humanlike traits (e.g., “this dog would be a good listener”). Participants in the control condition rated photos of dogs on a series of canine traits (e.g., “this dog would make a good watchdog”). After this experimental manipulation, participants engaged in a second cold pressor task in the presence of a therapy dog and the therapy dog handler. We hypothesized that participants in the anthropomorphism group would demonstrate greater pain tolerance and report lower levels of pain intensity and pain unpleasantness during the second cold pressor task than participants in the control group. Results provide partial support for these hypotheses. Participants in the anthropomorphism group reported lower posttest pain intensity than participants in the control group. In addition, they demonstrated greater posttest pain tolerance than participants in the control group—but only under conditions of medium or high pretest pain tolerance. The two groups did not differ with respect to posttest pain unpleasantness. The results of this exploratory study provide preliminary evidence that prompting individuals to view a therapy dog anthropomorphically may augment their experience of pain relief from a therapy dog visit.

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狗的拟人化是否会影响动物辅助干预中的疼痛感知？一项探索性研究

摘要 这项探索性研究的目的是确定治疗犬拟人化对动物辅助干预期间疼痛感知的影响。参与者是 32 名大学女性，她们被随机分配到拟人化条件或对照条件。所有参与者都参与了一项预测试冷加压任务，以测量疼痛耐受性以及对疼痛强度和疼痛不愉快感的基线个体差异。完成这项任务后，拟人组的参与者参与一项旨在让他们准备好拟人化地观察治疗犬的任务。具体来说，他们根据一系列类似人类的特征对狗的照片进行评分（例如，“这只狗会是一个很好的倾听者”）。控制条件下的参与者根据一系列犬类特征对狗的照片进行评分（例如，“这只狗会成为一个很好的看门狗”）。在这个实验操作之后，参与者在治疗犬和治疗犬的处理者在场的情况下进行了第二次冷加压任务。我们假设拟人组的参与者在第二次冷加压任务期间表现出更强的疼痛耐受性，并且报告的疼痛强度和疼痛不愉快程度低于对照组的参与者。结果为这些假设提供了部分支持。拟人组的参与者报告的测试后疼痛强度低于对照组的参与者。此外，他们表现出比对照组参与者更高的测试后疼痛耐受性 - 但仅在中等或高测试前疼痛耐受性的条件下。两组在测试后疼痛不愉快方面没有差异。