“Reactivity” in Dogs: A Critical Review of a Spreading Label and a Proposed Ethological Reconstruction
Abstract
This review examines the term “reactivity” as applied to domestic dogs and argues that it groups motivationally distinct behaviors under a single output-based label. The objective is to show that the criterion holding the category together, intensity of behavioral output, sits at the proximate level of behavioral form while the systems producing the behavior operate at the analytical levels Mayr (1961) and Tinbergen (1963) established as distinct. The method is a critical reading of ethology, the neuroscience of fear and aggression, incentive-salience research, the neurophysiology of frustration, and recent quantitative studies of dogs labeled reactive. The findings are that behaviors collected under the descriptor span fear-induced defense, frustrated approach, appetitive predatory sequences, and operantly maintained patterns, which differ in neural substrate, neurochemistry, and pharmacological response, so the label leaves all four of Tinbergen’s questions unaddressed. Because defensive and offensive behaviors are organized through mutually inhibitory circuits, an intensity-based descriptor cannot specify the motivational system in play. The conclusion proposes, in place of the label, a two-step assessment built on Moyer’s (1968) motivational typology and Tinbergen’s four questions, together with the validation any classification, current or proposed, would need to meet.
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