Domestic Cats (Felis silvestris catus) Do Not Show Signs of Secure Attachment to Their Owners.

ABSTRACT: The Ainsworth Strange Situation Test (SST) has been widely used to demonstrate that the bond between both children and dogs to their primary carer typically meets the requirements of a secure attachment (i.e. the carer being perceived as a focus of safety and security in otherwise threatening environments), and has been adapted for cats with a similar claim made. However methodological problems in this latter research make the claim that the cat-owner bond is typically a secure attachment, operationally definable by its behaviour in the SST, questionable. We therefore developed an adapted version of the SST with the necessary methodological controls which include a full counterbalance of the procedure. A cross-over design experiment with 20 cat-owner pairs (10 each undertaking one of the t

SUBMITTER: Potter A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4558093 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature