Decoding Equine Emotions

Leslie A. Russell

How accurate are people in their decoding of equine emotions? Fourteen male and female experts with substantial experience with horses assigned emotions to photos of horses with 97% agreement. Their judgments were used to create a measure with eight photos, two each of four different emotions (submission, relaxation, excitation, and anger).

Participants were recruited primarily through introductory psychology classes at a state university and through a local horse club directory. Among the 115 participants were 43 males and 72 females of varied experience levels (42 novices, 47 with intermediate experience, and 26 experts). Equine novices were defined as participants with less than one month of direct horse-related experience (regular contact for purposes other than maintenance care). Equine intermediate participants were defined as participants with between one month and five years of direct equine experience. Equine experts were defined as participants with more than five years in the equine industry and direct equine experience. Shown the eight photos, participants assigned one of the four emotions to each of them. The sum of the correct answers yielded an accuracy score between 0 and 8.
The effect of experience was significant (p<.001). Participants with novice experience averaged 3.98, intermediates scored higher with 5.66. The expert participants were most accurate, averaging 7.31. Females scored higher, on average, than males (5.78 vs. 4.81, respectively, p<.001).

Individuals with no equine experience accurately decoded the emotions of equines half the time. This suggests that adults may not need experience with a particular species of animal to have some accuracy in decoding emotions. However, extensive experience greatly improves decoding accuracy. Understanding what happens during interactions with horses to bring about this improvement would be an interesting line of investigation.

Accuracy in decoding equine emotions probably is related to safety and satisfaction in equine-human interactions. Results of this study imply that training people to be more accurate in decoding equine emotions would be useful for those who come into contact with horses as novices.

Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) programs operate in a number of communities. Measuring changes in clients' accuracy in decoding equine emotions would add precision to descriptions of outcomes when used in conjunction with assessment of variables such as overall empathy. Correlating decoding accuracy with other outcome variables could improve understanding of the process of EAT and help show whether emotional understanding of the animal co-therapist is a necessary part of clients' improvement in this clinical approach.

Although it was not measured in this study, the bi-directional nature of equine-human relationships, whether in EAT or routine settings, implies that examining equines' perceptions of human emotions is also important. Understanding how emotions are perceived when different species interact necessitates looking at both partners, a challenge for future studies.

* Leslie A. Russell, Shooting Star Stable. Brainerd, MN

Note
 

For Abstracts of all issues, including the most current, click Article Abstracts

To order Society & Animals Journal, go to our secure online ordering page

You can Search the online issues of Society & Animals, as well as the entire Society & Animals Forum (formerly PSYETA) website,
for topics and keywords of your interest: