Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing | Hacker News Reader

Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing

royalsocietypublishing.org

153 pointsrzk49 comments

I feel like teasing isn't exclusive to primates. Cats do it to each other all the time, I feel this is how they learn to stay alert and defend themselves from actual threats, but I'm not an expert on this.

it's also the way to learn about, establish and work with personal boundaries

The article is about the distinction between playful teasing and aggressive teasing. What cats do is aggressive teasing, not playful teasing. The paper talks about how aggressive teasing is well known outside of humans. The question was whether playful teasing exists outside of humans, since it requires a more fully developed concept of the other's mind.

They give the example of offer & withdrawal in an affiliative context. It could be done in an aggressive manner: imagine a bully on the playground offering a ball and then taking it away. But it can also be done in a playful way: imagine a parent playing keep away with a toddler with both sides laughing the whole time.

That you characterise feline teasing as about staying alert and not about building bonds further reinforces that cats aren't doing the same kind of playful teasing being described in the paper.

Hmm, I think this is interesting. I went and looked at the paper and the distinction here seems very interesting. I always thought of agressive teasing type behavior as a way to probe the percieved hierarchy. Like someone only a bit above you in the hierarchy would get annoyed by it, a stranger would get hostile, someone far above would ignore you, a peer would play back etc. I do think it builds bonds though. If you watch two dogs playfighting you can see them pause occasionally, looking at each other, gauging the other's reaction. They can often go from agressive play to laying in a heap together very quickly.

Dogs do a lot of clearly playful teasing, they signal that it is playful by wagging their tail. You see it all the time when dogs meet new dogs.

It seems like there’s a whole thing they go through: go and sniff the other dog to make their presence known, then crouch down and wag their tail, then start running away to provoke the other dog to chase them and see if the other dog wants to and start playing if so

At least that’s what I often see happen, and aggression looks quite different

I'm not sure that this is a teasing by definition of the article. Running away dog does nothing surprising for another dog. They just follow a protocol.

My dog definitely teases me. She’ll grab one of my socks and sit in front of me with the sock laying on the floor. As soon as I go to pick it up, she’ll snatch it and run away.

But is it playful or aggressive ? I often hear the behavior you describe is about the dog asserting dominance, which should be a no-no.

Dominance theory in dogs is largely discredited.

Ooh, thanks ! I am learning something new https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/dog-advice/training/techniques/...

I believe there are two possible exolanations for that behavior, and I feel that they are different. Though I have no PhD in the field.

First it can be just a learned behavior. For example it could go like this. Your dog at some point in the past grabbed your sock, you tried to get the sock from her, and she saw the interaction as a fun game. Later repetitions reinforced this behaviour.

The other explanation is a teasing. It could be for example if your dog was trained to bring socks to you and give them to you, but instead she didn't let go of socks sometimes, when she is in a playful mood. But not too often to not lose an element of surprise, to not get a reaction "oh no, not that again, just give me the sock". If this behaviour becomes routine it is no longer teasing (by definition of the article) because there is no surprise.

I believe that the second explanation needs from a dog to get the general idea of rules, rituals, protocols, and an ability to exploit her understanding to create a moment of surprise in you. The first explanation doesn't need anything more exciting than conditioning, B.F.Skinner would have explained that behaviour without stopping to think for a second.

And I believe dogs are explained mostly with a first kind of explanation. They learn through conditioning. When they invent some new behaviour it can start with a transfer (a play with a stick was transformed to a play with a sock in absence of a suitable stick) and then developed into a new behaviour through reinforcement. You can teach your dog to tease, but you can write a teasing computer program also, it doesn't mean than the dog or the program could get the idea of teasing.

But all this written is written by me, having very basic psychology education. I can be completely misguided.

Dogs react strongly when people start jumping or running around or taking their stuff. That is the teasing, and then wagging the tail and other playful signals makes it playful teasing rather than aggressive. I don't see how this is any more standard protocol than humans teasing each other. They do something to trigger the other person and then signal "just kidding!".

Dogs absolutely tease, but agreed that was a poor example.

My dog will for example provoke play by bringing a ball to you so close that you can’t help but reach for it and then very subtly turn his head so you just miss it, do that over and over until you get irritated enough to chase him.

I "dogsit" a lot of dogs and "teasing" is my primary technique to get a new/shy dog to play.

If I just show them a toy they usually ignore it.

But if start to give it to them, and then take it away their interest starts to build.

Repeat a few times and suddenly the formally shy dog is playing!

I have had a number of dogs relatively high on the dog intelligence scale, with an Australian Shepherd right now, and another thing they do that shows at least a minimal theory of mind for teasing-like purposes is enticement. josefresco in a sibling comment mentions teasing dogs with toys to get them interested; my dog does the same thing too. The theory of mind is not so developed that she's aware that I, as a human being, am nowhere near as interested in her toy as I am, but it's definitely non-trivial cognitive work. (And I have to admit I've spiked her data set, since we generally choose to respond anyhow. Part of having a dog like an Australian Shepherd is that you're signing up to a moderately high-energy dog and we knew that going in, so we realize we have a responsibility to take the enticement anyhow.)

I don't think cats only do aggressive teasing (presumably, you are focusing on how they can treat other cats or rats/mice)

Cats can be found playing with weaker animals like ducks or rabbits, and comfortable yet playful in the same nature as puppies with dogs and puppies. Lots of this teasing isn't of agressive nature, but it usually happens within the home/safe place for the animal

Sorry, but as someone who had a cat for 14 years, I have already read too many scientific claims about cats which were obviously totally bonkers that I am inclined to no longer care what scientists figure out about cats.

That suspiciously sounds exactly like something a cat would say...

I think we need to do a wellness check on the owner

Rough and tumble play can still be playful. Playfulness is a state of mind, not a mode of soft play

I immediately thought about my cat as well when reading this. It was fun playing with him. And everyone who has ever been really bitten by a cat (me at the age of 10, went through the hand) knows that 99.999% of cat activities in a typical household are playful.

I wonder whether playful teasing could play a similar defensive role to what dares can be argued to play[0]: provoking certain detectable socially healthy reactions, and using absence of such reactions as a negative signal (psychopathy in case of dares, perhaps something like narcissism in case of teasing).

[0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/05/05/dares-costly-signals-a..., Sarah Perry with many references to late Pieter Hintjens as well as other research.

This is so interesting, thanks for sharing! (Might want to add 2020 to the title)

having experienced a lot of psychoanalysis, I feel most of these descriptions in TFA and here in the comment section are missing something. Declaring play to be aggressive vs non-aggressive is missing the element of conflict in our emotions. A particular mode of play is going to entail a mix of "sub-emotions": some aggression is always there, the question is how much, and how much it is being concurrently balanced by other conflicting emotions such as attraction or need, etc. The way you pretend to be an opponent is by being an opponent, just not too much or by also being a friend; the way you pretend to be selfish is to be selfish, just not too much.

We are not one way or another, our emotions are in conflict all the time; we are a balance, or with some frequency, an imbalance.

Why do I feel that seeing this article here hints that people are leaning harder into causal inference problems?

Most of my experience of teasing falls into one of two catagories: teasing of a female by a male, teasing of a child by an adult. I can't remember the last time I (m) was teased by another male.

This begs the question... at some level is the teasing of females by males an attempt to infantalise them? A mating ploy perhaps?

You don’t tease your male friends and coworkers?

I think it’s more of a bonding ritual than anything (a moment of false vulnerability/social danger that resolves into safety), with different outcomes depending on the folks involved.

Maybe we (males to other males) do something similar to teasing... But with a crueler streak. I knew I could call my Irish colleague a freind the day he called me an Englsh wanker.

Conversely, a former girlfriend said that she did not consider me as a romantic partner until the first time I teased her. I can't remember what form it took, but there is no way it would have involved me calling her a wanker.

What you describe sounds almost exactly like the definition of playful teasing laid out in the article:

> For playful teasing to be successfully interpreted as affiliative rather than aggressive, the teaser, to some extent, has to understand the recipient's expectations and predict their likely reaction. Likewise, the recipient needs to draw accurate inferences and correctly identify the teaser's intent as affiliative, looking beyond any mildly abrasive behavioural elements.

The stark difference in social boundaries you observe is actually an affirmation of the hypothesis that playful teasing acts as a social tool for discovering how to navigate different individual social dynamics.

It's a way to flirt.

Teasing communicates effectively:

* I'm not a threat to you, being around me is safe.

* I have humour

* I am fun to be around

As the other commenter said, it creates bonding. You only tease people you like. I can't think of a faster way to demonstrate these qualities, which are perceived as very attractive.

Dudes tease/poke at each other relentlessly, in my experience. It's a fundamental part of many/most male friendship.

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