Dogs’ Reversal of Dominance Preferences in Human Social Worlds

Dogs’ Reversal of Dominance Preferences in Human Social Worlds | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Biological Sciences - Article Dogs’ Reversal of Dominance Preferences in Human Social Worlds Yi Jiang, Shuting Dai, Xiqian Lu, Qiming Xu, Zhentao Zuo, Yupei Liu, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9550941/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Social hierarchy structures social life across species, yet how dogs—a species deeply intertwined with humans—perceive human social hierarchies remains unknown. Do dogs generalize their own dominance‑avoidance social rules to humans, or adopt the human tendency to prefer dominant individuals? Across five experiments, we show that dogs reliably prefer dominant humans but avoid dominant conspecifics. Dogs attended more to humans who prevailed in resource conflicts or displayed dominant postures, and in naturalistic interactions they preferentially approached dominant individuals. In contrast, under analogous conditions, dogs looked longer at subordinate conspecifics. These findings reveal a species‑dependent reversal in dominance preferences and highlight dogs’ unique adaptation to a human-dominated social environment. Biological sciences/Evolution/Coevolution Biological sciences/Psychology Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SupplementaryMaterialsforDogsXXXReversalofDominancePreferencesinHumanSocialWorlds.pdf Supplementary information MovieS1S7.zip Supplementary movies Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9550941","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Biological Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":632806984,"identity":"8f535513-d904-499d-a4a0-a649c0e7d3a2","order_by":0,"name":"Yi 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