Any dog owner would testify that dogs are just as prone¹ to jealousy² as humans.

任何狗主人都能作证，狗狗简直和人一样容易嫉妒。

But can one really compare Othello’s agony to Roscoe’s pique³?

但真的有人能把罗斯科(Roscoe)的愤懑与奥赛罗(Othello)的痛苦相提并论吗？

The answer, according to Christine Harris, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, is that if you are petting another dog, Roscoe is going to show something that Dr. Harris thinks is a form of jealousy, even if not as complex and twisted as the adult human form.

加州大学圣迭戈分校(University of California, San Diego)的心理学家克里斯蒂娜·哈里斯(Christine Harris)表示，答案是，如果你抚摸另一只狗，罗斯科会有某种表现。哈里斯博士认为，这种表现是嫉妒的一种形式，尽管这种形式不像成年人类的嫉妒形式那么复杂、扭曲。

Other scientists agree there is something going on, but not all are convinced it is jealousy. And Roscoe and the rest of his tribe were, without exception, unavailable for comment.

其他一些科学家也认同这种情形下会出现某种情况，但并不都相信那是嫉妒。而罗斯科和他的同类，无一例外均不便发表评论。

Dr. Harris had been studying human jealousy for years when she took this question on, inspired partly by the antics of her parents’ Border collies. When she petted them, “one would take his head and knock the other’s head away,” she said. It certainly looked like jealousy.

在遇到这个问题时，哈里斯博士已经对人类的嫉妒情绪进行了多年研究。当时，她部分是受了父母的边境牧羊犬表现出的怪异行为的启发。她说，当她抚摸他们时，“其中一只会用头把另外一只的头挤开”。这种情形看上去当然像嫉妒了。

But having studied humans, she was aware of different schools of thought about jealousy. Some scientists argue that jealousy requires complex thinking about self and others, which seems beyond dogs’ abilities. Others think that although our descriptions of jealousy are complex, the emotion itself may not be that complex.

但因为已经对人类进行了研究，她了解有关嫉妒的不同思想流派。一些科学家认为，嫉妒要求有能力对自身和他人进行复杂思考，这似乎超出了狗狗的能力。其他一些人则认为，尽管我们对嫉妒的描述颇为复杂，但这种情感本身或许并不复杂。

Dog emotions, as owners perceive them, have been studied before. In one case, Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive⁴ scientist who is an adjunct associate professor at Barnard College and the author of “Inside of a Dog,” found that the so-called guilty look that dogs exhibit seemed to be more related to fear of punishment.

以前就有人研究过主人眼中狗狗的情感。在其中一项研究中，著有《一只狗的内心》(Inside of a Dog)的认知科学家、巴纳德学院(Barnard College)客座副教授亚历山德拉·霍罗威茨(Alexandra Horowitz)发现，狗狗表现出来的所谓的内疚表情似乎与害怕受到惩罚更相关。

Dr. Harris ventured into the tricky⁵ turf of dog emotion by devising a test based on work done with infants.

哈里斯博士以针对孩子的研究工作为基础，设计了一个试验，大胆进入了狗的情感这个棘手领域。

When dog owners petted and talked to a realistic stuffed dog that barked and whined⁶, the people’s own dogs came over, pushed the person or the stuffed dog, and sometimes barked. After the experiment, many of the dogs sniffed⁷ the rear end of the stuffed dog, suggesting, Dr. Harris said, that the dogs thought it might be real.

当狗主人抚摸一只逼真的、能吠叫并发出呜呜声的填充玩具狗，并与其说话时，他们自己的狗会走过来，推自己的主人或那只玩具狗，有时还会大叫。试验结束后，许多狗狗会嗅那只填充玩具狗的臀部。哈里斯博士称，这表明，那些狗狗以为玩具狗可能是一只真狗。

Dr. Harris also recorded what happened as the owners petted and talked to a jack-o’-lantern and read a children’s book aloud, to see if any old distraction⁸ would provoke a reaction. The dogs paid little attention to the jack-o’-lantern and very little to the book.

为了看看随便什么通常分散注意力的事情会不会让它们有所反应，哈里斯还记录了狗主人在抚摸南瓜灯笼并和它说话，以及大声朗读儿童读物时发生的情况。那些狗少有注意灯笼的，对那本书，狗狗的关注度则更小。

Dr. Harris concluded, in a paper in PLoS One written with Caroline Prouvost, also at the University of California, San Diego, that the dogs showed a “primordial” form of jealousy, not as complex as the human emotion, but similar in that there is a social triangle and the dog is trying to make sure it, not the rival, receives the attention.

在与同在加州大学圣迭戈分校任职的卡罗琳·普鲁沃(Caroline Prouvost)共同撰写，并发表在《公共科学图书馆·综合》(PLOS One)的一篇文章中，哈里斯得出结论称，那些狗表现出了一种“原始”形式的嫉妒，不像人类的嫉妒那么复杂。但它也是发生在一种社会三角关系之中，狗狗会尝试确定获得关注的是自己，而不是对手，因此这种情感与人类的嫉妒类似。

Other scientists had mixed reactions to the work. Dr. Horowitz said she admired the goal but thought the researchers had not shown that the behaviors observed actually indicated jealousy.

其他科研人员对这项研究的反响各异。霍罗威茨博士说，她很欣赏该研究的目标，但她认为，研究者没能证明，被观察到的行为真的代表嫉妒。

“What can be shown is that dogs seem to want an owner’s attention when there is attention being given out,” she said. “This study confirms that.”

“可以被证明的是，当主人向外界给予关注的时候，狗狗似乎想要得到这种关注，”她说，“这项研究证实了这一点。”

Sybil Hart, at Texas Tech, who has studied jealousy in infants, said she thought the research was “very well done and makes a very compelling argument.”

德克萨斯理工大学的西比尔·哈特(Sybil Hart)曾经研究过婴儿的嫉妒心理。哈特说，她认为这项研究“做得很出色，观点令人信服”。

If one sees jealousy in babies and dogs, she said, “to some degree, it’s innate,” which would be important to know for attempts to manage human jealousy.

哈特说，如果人们发现了婴儿和狗狗的嫉妒之心，“在一定程度上，这是天生的”。了解这一点对于管理成人的嫉妒情绪十分重要。

“Over all, trying to make it go away has not been very successful,” Dr. Hart said. “We are trying to eliminate jealousy, and scientists are saying maybe we should try to understand it better.”

“总的来说，消除嫉妒心理的努力并不是非常成功，”哈特博士说。“我们正努力消除嫉妒情绪，而科学家告诉我们，或许我们应该试着更好地理解它。”

Jealousy, Dr. Harris wrote in the study, is “the third leading cause of nonaccidental homicide across cultures.”

哈里斯在研究中写道，嫉妒“在许多文化中都是故意杀人案的第三大诱因”。

Whatever the dogs’ behavior is called, said Brian Hare, a director of the Duke Canine¹⁰ Cognition Center at Duke University, there are practical implications for their owners.

杜克大学杜克犬科动物认知研究中心(Duke Canine Cognition Center at Duke University)的主任布赖恩·黑尔(Brian Hare)说，无论犬类的这种行为被称作什么，对他们的主人而言，都会存在一些实实在在的影响。

“Attention seeking can lead to jealousylike behavior in dogs that includes aggression¹¹ in some cases,” he said. “So for dogs with suspected aggression problems, it may be important to avoid situations where they feel ignored.”

“寻求关注可以引发狗狗类似于嫉妒的表现，比如有时候出现攻击性，”他说。“因此，对于可能有攻击性问题的狗狗来说，避免让他们感到被忽略也许十分重要。”