Consistent inter-individual differences in behaviour have been previously reported in adult shelter cats. In this study, we aimed to assess whether repeatable individual differences in behaviours exhibited by shelter cats in different situations were interrelated, forming behavioural syndromes. We tested 31 adult cats in five different behavioural tests, repeated three times each: a struggle test where an experimenter restrained the cat, a separation/confinement test where the cat spent 2 min in a pet carrier, a mouse test where the cat was presented with a live mouse in a jar, and two tests where the cat reacted to an unfamiliar human who remained either passive or actively approached the cat. Individual differences in behaviour were consistent (repeatable) across repeated trials for each of the tests. We also found associations between some of the behaviours shown in the different tests, several of which appeared to be due to differences in human-oriented behaviours. This study is the first to assess the presence of behavioural syndromes using repeated behavioural tests in different situations common in the daily life of a cat, and which may prove useful in improving the match between prospective owner and cat in shelter adoption programmes.

中文翻译：

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成年庇护猫的行为个体差异和行为综合症的证据。

以前在成年避难所猫中有一致的个体差异。在这项研究中，我们旨在评估躲猫猫在不同情况下表现出的可重复的个体差异是否相互关联，从而形成行为综合症。我们用五种不同的行为测试对31只成年猫进行了测试，每项重复三遍：实验者约束猫的挣扎测试，猫在宠物笼中呆2分钟的分离/限制测试，猫出现的小鼠测试将一只活老鼠放在一个罐子里，并进行两次测试，这只猫对一个陌生的人做出了反应，这个人要么被动要么主动靠近猫。在每个测试的重复测试中，行为的个体差异是一致的（可重复的）。我们还发现不同测试中显示的某些行为之间存在关联，其中一些似乎是由于以人为本的行为的差异所致。这项研究是首次在猫的日常生活中使用不同情况下的重复行为测试来评估行为综合症的存在，这可能在改善收容所收养计划中的准主人与猫之间的匹配方面很有用。