Quote Originally Posted by denuseri View Post

Even animals as primative in comparrison to us as dogs are capable of showing examples of the behavior.
What about Pavlovian conditioning? It seems likely to me that dogs, or any animal, displaying examples of shame and guilt would be caused by interactions with humans and resulting domestication / conditioning. If that behavior is observed in undomesticated animals in their natural environment that might better support the innate/hard-wired theory. However, naturalistic observation is subjective, so how to be sure that the emotions and concepts of shame and guilt aren't being projected by the observer onto the behavior?