Emotional contagion in nonhuman working animals: Lessons from canine rescue teams

In response to Hernandez et al.'s (2025) proposal that the I-O psychology lens be extended to nonhuman working animals, we propose an expansion of how a focus on the human-animal dyad can be informative to our field.Our viewpoint reflects the benefits of researching interactions between nonhuman working animals and their human handlers (i.e., supervisors), as the job performance of some human employees is dependent on these interspecies collaborations.Specifically, we use an I-O lens to examine research from other fields on emotional contagion between humans and animals that we believe can shed light on interdependence at work, shared emotions, and links to teamwork (cf.Hunt et al., 2012).We focus on search and rescue (SAR) dogs and how they cooperate with their teammates and handlers.SAR dogs are deployed in highly stressful and dangerous situations, often searching for injured humans and survivors after a natural disaster (e.g., earthquakes, fires) or an incident of terrorism (e.g., 9/11).They are certified working animals who are typically bonded to one human handler.Although it represents a change in the typical population of study for I-O psychologists, we argue that studying nonhuman animals may help us better understand work group dynamics.Nonhuman animals' emotions and behaviors can impact the work-related behaviors of those humans whose performance is contingent on their partnership.More specifically, research on working canines (e.g., police dogs, SAR dogs) provides a highfidelity simulation of the employee-supervisor relationship that is a mainstay of I-O research.Trust between the two parties is critical in the dangerous contexts in which many of these pairs interact.This parallels the trust between supervisors and employees in similar organizational settings.For instance, law enforcement officers must trust a police dog as they would their human partners to continue working safely and effectively even when they are out of sight in a hazardous location.The pair must work together with a high level of synchrony, and handlers must be acutely aware of how they communicate both emotion and information to a SAR dog to avoid distracting them during intensive tasks (Kasprzak & Bornemark, 2024).Both working partners take cues from one another and build trust largely on the quality of these interactions, just as human coworkers would.However, each partner also brings unique skills to the work setting.In the case of SAR work, the trained canine will often track a scent and then follow directions via the human handler's verbal and nonverbal signals.Together, the pair engage in a truly symbiotic work relationship as neither one alone possesses the other's capabilities to help them reach their shared goal of a successful work outcome (i.e., rescue).The human handler may not be able to fit into small spaces during a search and cannot track a missing person's scent, and the SAR dog may not foresee hazardous situations anticipated by the handler.This differs from I-O research that is focused mainly on human employee-supervisor relationships where the individuals have interchangeable, or potentially trainable, skills.Studying SAR dog-handler interactions can