“Too Much Too Soon? Risk Factors for Fear Behavior in Foster Kittens prior to Adoption”, 2024 ():
Fear at the time of adoption is a welfare concern for foster kittens.
Being fearful at intake increased fear to unfamiliar people and objects at adoption age.
Exposure to social stimuli reduced fear towards people at adoption age.
Exposure to cognitive enrichment and [human] foster parent personality increased fear.
This study challenges guidelines for high exposure during early socialization.
[supplement] Many companion kittens spend their sensitive period for [feline & human] socialization (~2–9 weeks of age) in [human] foster care, and the quality of these early life experiences can impact behavioral development. This study aimed to improve early kitten care by using an online survey to investigate risk factors for fear behavior in foster kittens prior to adoption (7–9 weeks of age) based on early management practices, foster parent personality traits [TIPI/ et al 2003], and evaluations of kitten behavior. The main behavioral outcomes of this study were whether kittens showed caregiver-reported fear behavior during interactions with unfamiliar people and unfamiliar objects just prior to adoption. Fear behavior included displays of avoidance, freezing, crouching, ears back, piloerection, and aggression.
We analyzed the impacts of kitten (n = 235) and foster parent (n = 72) characteristics, exposure to social stimuli (ie. general handling, mimicking handling during a vet visit, exposure to people), and exposure to non-social stimuli (eg. interactive toys, scratching material, different surfaces, etc.) provided. Using mixed logistic regression models, with foster parent as a random intercept to account for clustering at the foster home level, we found that:
kittens who were reported fearful at intake into foster care had statistically-significantly greater odds of displaying fear behaviors towards unfamiliar people and unfamiliar objects than kittens who were not reported fearful at intake.
Additionally, kittens who received exposure to cognitive enrichment-based non-social stimuli had greater odds of displaying fear towards people compared to kittens who did not receive cognitive exposure. Kittens whose foster parent had a high score for Emotional Stability [low Neuroticism] had greater odds of displaying fear towards people compared to those who had a low score for Emotional Stability [high Neuroticism]. [huh?] Further, kittens who received high exposure to social stimuli had reduced odds of displaying fear towards people than kittens who received low social exposure, as predicted.
Some of these findings challenge recommendations for high amounts of exposure to social and non-social stimuli during early socialization. High social exposure was ineffective at reducing fear levels towards unfamiliar objects, and high cognitive enrichment-based non-social exposure appears to have exceeded kitten limits for optimal behavioral development. While appropriate socialization is beneficial for development, the current study highlights the need for further research to understand the impact of different socialization practices on kitten behavioral development, and the importance of accurately identifying when kittens are fearful and adapting socialization practices appropriately.
[Keywords: cat, socialization, flooding, social exposure, non-social exposure, habituation]
…Our finding that kittens whose foster parent had a high score for emotional stability (ie. low neuroticism) had greater odds of displaying fear towards people compared to those who had a low score is contradictory to other recent research. Cat caretakers with high scores for neuroticism (ie. low emotional stability) have been found to be associated with cats who are more aggressive and fearful and these caretakers were more likely to report that their cats had “behavioral problems” ( et al 2019). In another study, cat caretakers with high scores for neuroticism had more anxious attachments to their cats, which may present as a more vigilant or careful caretaking style (2014). However, in these previous studies, cats were mature (minimum 9 months old) and had been in the home for at least 3 months, whereas kittens in the current study were 7–9 weeks old and in the home for a maximum of 9 weeks (minimum 1 week). The average score for emotional stability in the participating study population was higher than the general population average (Gosling et al 200321ya). Therefore, it is possible that people with a higher emotional stability may be more willing to foster fearful kittens or even foster kittens in general, reflecting a potential bias in the current study population. Data obtained from online surveys may also be prone to selection bias (Gosling et al 200420ya) and this may have been the case with our study population. Future exploration into the impact of human personality on the relationship we have with kittens both in foster care and in adoptive homes, as well as the use of more in-depth personality assessments (eg. the 44-item Big Five Inventory, 1999), is important for understanding the impact of human personality on kitten and cat behavior.
[I wonder if they just made a data/coding mistake? Flipping Emotional-Stability vs Neuroticism is an easy reverse-coding mistake and entirely possible, and one reason to never screw around with reverse-coded variables… Lack of correlation matrixes & data availability means no checks possible; I emailed the corresponding author and they swear they quadruple-checked it and are convinced it’s not a coding error, and plan to follow up on it. If it is real, the simplest explanation seems like ‘selective placement’: the kitten-fostering organizations assign high-Stability/low-Neuroticism volunteers their hardest (which usually means, most skittish & fearful) kittens.]