do dogs have a sense of self?

ORIGINAL: mudpuppy

I think ALL highly social species are capable of doing this-- imaging how others would feel and react, and capable of using deception. Not just primates. It's essential for operating in complex social societies.

I don't know if I quite explained that correctly. Yes, dogs and other social animals are able to predict how their behaviour might affect the behaviour of another individual, but I don't think that they understand why that particular behaviour gets that particular response. They just know that it does. The way I understand it, and I probably didn't communicate this very well, is that what seperates theory of mind from advanced social conditioning is the fact that an individual with a theory of mind will comprehend that another individual has beliefs, desires and intentions beyond their own. Dogs might understand that biting too hard makes their playmate end the game, but do they understand that their playmate ends the game because his pal hurt him? It's a subtle, but important difference. To use another example, a dog might know that people pick up injured animals, but could they possibly comprehend that we don't want to eat them or play with them like they do? I think to deceive in the true sense, you need to understand how another individual is thinking, be able to imagine what another individual knows. Kids too young for a ToM can try to lie, but they're really bad at it and believe that you must have seen their misbehaviour even if you didn't, because how else would you know they were lying?

If you think dogs can make those little extra steps in understanding, then that's your prerogative. For all I know, they can and I just haven't seen anything that convinces me yet.

I'm smarter than my dog because I have foresight and the ability to judge long-term consequences. I can choose not to believe someone because I judge them to have goals that conflict with my own. I can give people compliments I know will make them feel especially good, or make cutting remarks I know will be painful. I can do all those things because I have a sense of myself existing as a seperate entity with my own personal feelings, intentions, goals and beliefs that I know are not shared by everyone. Furthermore, I can develop a working model in my mind of how other individuals might think and feel and what their goals and beliefs are.

But hey, what do I know? I can't climb inside a dog's head, as much as I'd like to. If you disagree, then we can agree to disagree. []

Terriffic subject, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, I am obsolultly lost for words.
 
Danielle

that's the problem. I don't think I could prove to someone else that I have a "sense of self", how could I prove or not prove a dog does? I just suspect they do, in some rudimentary fashion.

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

I believe the test sense of self the science community uses, to determine self awareness...is the mirror test. Can the creature look into a mirror...and know that it is "me" and not 'another animal like myself to play with, growl at, run from, etc'. No dog I've ever owned has ever come to understand about reflections....

Dunno if that's what you mean by sense of self?

You are right on about this, by what I've been taught, anyway.
No animal lower than a monkey has been able to grasp their reflections in a mirror.
We just were talking about this in my psych class (weird I just replied to another post about something we had also discussed in my psych class) and we were watching Jane Goodall and her study of chimps in Africa and this topic came up because chimps DO grasp reflections and later they found that monkeys do to. Anything with lower intelligence than a monkey does not understand.

Sorry, just wanted to mention that.[]

It is a problem. I saw a doco on children and they demonstrated the theory of mind by getting a money box and putting buttons in it in front of a kid, then asking the kid what their friend would think was in the money box if they came in now and saw it. The younger kids without a ToM said "buttons" because they couldn't see how someone could not know what they knew. The older children said "money" because they realised that if they hadn't seen the buttons go in, they would think the money box had money because that's what money boxes normally have in them. It was cute to see the older kids make this connection. Most of them thought it would be pretty darn funny if their friend came in and thought there was money in the box when they knew it was only buttons.

Of course, you can't do things like that with animals. People are always trying to work out ways to show if an animal can make connections like that, but I don't think they've come up with anything that convinces everyone yet.

There is at least one tribal culture in the world that simply has no word, no communication form, for the word "me" - the idea of the individual, as opposed to the group, doesn't exist in their social structure.  Now, as humans they technically have the "theory of mind" that we have given a label to.  However, they view themselves as simply part of a group, much like we are theorising that dogs do.  A sense of self, which this tribe must have, if the scientists are right, does NOT necessarily proclude seeing oneself as only part of something larger.  Still, though, I think we are applying comparisons where they can not be made. 
 
I think part of the issue here is that evaluating whether or not dogs have a sense of self is impossible coming from humans, who do have a sense of self and who have devised tests to evaluate something we already have.  We're not on the outside looking in - we are making comparisons between 2 different species, and not out of idle curiosity - we are one half of the equation.  Basic human egoism will dictate that we attempt to find similarities where there may be none, not for us to be more like the dog but for the dog to be more like us.  If a dog IS like us, the divide between ourselves and our pets becomes smaller, and thus synergy would be easier to achieve - and that, after all, is what we all want with our animals.  The problem is that we're comparing apples and oranges here.  As Anne so admirably put it, they DO have a sense of self, but it's not ours.  It can't be the same as ours because theory of mind is tied inherently to social structure, and ours is not the same as our canine counterparts.  They have a sense of self all their own, and while we may be able to catch glimpses of that, simple language/species barriers will prohibit full discovery.
 
Kate