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Sociability
By Soli Kator
For cats, life in close proximity with humans (and other animals kept by humans as pets) amounts to a "symbiotic social adaptation" which has developed over thousands of years. The sort of social relationship cats have with their human keepers is hard to map onto more generalized wild cat behavior, but it is certain that the cat thinks of humans differently than it does other cats (i.e., it does not think of itself as human, nor that humans are cats).
This can be seen in the difference in body and vocal language it uses with humans, when compared to how it communicates with other cats in the household, for example. Some have suggested that, psychologically, the human keeper of a cat is a sort of surrogate for the cat's mother, and that adult domestic cats live their lives in a kind of extended kitten hood.
The typical negative stereotype of a cat describes a "solitary" animal, prone to opaqueness or inscrutability as well as aloofness and self-sufficiency. However, cats are not generally as asocial as that stereotype, and indeed can be very affectionate towards their human companions, especially if they imprint on them at a very young age and are treated with consistent affection. Some breeds like Bengal, Ocicat and Manx are known to be very social by instinct.
Regardless of the average sociability of any given cat or of cats in general, there are still any number of cats who meet or exceed the negative feline stereotype insofar as being poorly socialized. Yet with proper training and reinforcement of positive social behavior, poorly socialized cats can become more social over time. Older cats have also been reported to sometimes develop aggressiveness towards kittens, which may include biting and scratching; this type of behavior is known as Feline Asocial Aggression.
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