ABSTRACT The current study aimed to investigate the extent to which young children’s risk of being bitten by a dog is explained by their inability to recognize the dog’s emotion and to behave appropriately around dogs. One hundred and seventeen children, aged 4 to 7 years, were shown 15 images and 15 video clips of happy, angry, and frightened dogs. After each image or clip, questions were asked to assess children’s accuracy and confidence in recognizing the emotional state and their inclination to approach the dog. Results indicate that children were least accurate when presented with frightened dogs, with only just over half of 4- to 5-year-olds accurately recognizing them. Children were inclined to approach frightened and happy dogs, but not angry ones, and this was true regardless of whether they had correctly identified the emotion or not. Therefore, the results suggest that although some children struggle to recognize when a dog is frightened, the more concerning issue is their lack of understanding of how to behave appropriately around dogs, especially those that are frightened. Learning how to behave appropriately around dogs should be key in any dog bite prevention program aimed at young children.

中文翻译：

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幼儿对狗的情绪的解读以及他们接近快乐、愤怒和受惊的狗的意图

摘要 目前的研究旨在调查幼儿被狗咬伤的风险在多大程度上是由他们无法识别狗的情绪和在狗周围表现得恰当来解释的。向 117 个 4 至 7 岁的儿童展示了 15 张快乐、愤怒和害怕的狗的图像和 15 个视频片段。在每个图像或剪辑之后，都会提出问题来评估儿童识别情绪状态的准确性和信心以及他们接近狗的倾向。结果表明，当遇到受惊的狗时，儿童最不准确，只有超过一半的 4 至 5 岁儿童能准确识别它们。孩子们倾向于接近受惊和快乐的狗，而不是愤怒的狗，无论他们是否正确识别了情绪，这都是正确的。因此，结果表明，尽管有些孩子很难识别出狗何时受到惊吓，但更令人担忧的问题是他们缺乏对如何在狗周围适当表现的了解，尤其是那些受到惊吓的狗。学习如何在狗周围适当举止应该是任何针对幼儿的狗咬预防计划的关键。