The Inevitable Bond: Examining Scientist-Animal Interactions

Although animals are widely employed as research subjects, it is only recently that we have acknowledged the bond that frequently, perhaps inevitably, develops between subject and researcher. Whatever the qualities of this relationship, an increasing body of evidence suggests that it may result in profound behavioural and physiological changes in the animal subject. Such effects are apparent in behavioural studies conducted in both laboratory and field settings. They also appear in physiological studies ranging from the biomedical (e.g. heart rate, blood pressure, immunological changes) to animal science (e.g. growth, reproduction). Such effects are not confined to obvious cases involving primates and dogs, but appear in unexpected animals like chickens, reptiles and even octopuses. Despite the fact that most researchers are trained to minimise or avoid such interactions, they continue to occur. This book, the first of its kind to address this issue systematically, describes many examples of this 'inevitable bond' between scientist and animal. This discussion will allow researchers to anticipate these potentially confounding effects and take advantage of such relationships in designing more effective and humane environments for animal subjects.

Table of Contents:
1. Acknowledgements; 2. The inevitable bond; 3. Interactions, relationships and bonds: the conceptual basis for scientist-animal relations; 4. Studies of rodent-human interactions in animal psychology; 5. The covalent animal: on bonds and their boundaries in behavioral research; 6. The phenomenon of attachment in human-nonhuman relationships; 7. Humanity's 'best friend': the origins of our inevitable bond with dogs; 8. The use of dog-human interaction as a reward in instrumental conditioning and its impact on dogs' cardiac regulation; 9. Behavioral arousal and its effect on the experimental animal and the experimenter; 10. Practice makes predictable: repeated sampling differentially affects behavioral and physiological responses; 11. Improved handling of experimental rhesus monkeys; 12. Social interaction as a condition for learning in avian species: a synthesis of the disciplines of ethology and psychology; 13. Pongid pedagogy: the contribution of human-chimpanzee interactions to the study of ape cognition; 14. The role of social bonds in motivating chimpanzee cognition; 15. Minimizing an inevitable bond: the study of automated avoidance in rats; 16. Underestimating the octopus; 17. The scientist and the snake: relationships with reptiles; 18. Fear of humans and its consequences for the domestic pig; 19. The effect of the researcher on the behavior of poultry; 20. Early human-animal relationships and temperament differences among domestic dairy goats; 21. The effect of the researcher on the behavior of horses; 22. Imprinting and other aspects of pinniped-human interactions; 23. Humans as predators: observational studies and the risk of pseudo-habituation; 24. Human-bear bonding in research on black bear behavior; 25. Scientist-animal bonding: some philosophical reflections.