Overview
- Arizona State University researchers Holly Molinaro and Clive Wynne published the peer-reviewed findings in PeerJ on December 5.
- Two experiments with roughly 300 undergraduates each tested mood priming before students rated short, context-free videos of three pet dogs in positive, neutral, or negative states.
- Human-image priming successfully shifted participants’ self-reported mood but did not alter their assessments of the dogs’ emotions.
- Dog-image priming yielded a reversed effect, with happy primes leading participants to judge subsequent dogs as sadder and sad primes leading them to judge dogs as happier.
- Viewing the dog clips tended to lift participants’ mood, and the authors note limits including a small set of dogs, laboratory conditions, and student samples, calling for replication.