Research overview: personality assessment for shelter cats and welfare

Reliable personality assessment helps match cats to homes and tailor care, and this overview surveys research developing and validating temperament tests for shelter and pet cats. It covers behavioural test batteries and owner or staff rating instruments measuring traits such as boldness, sociability toward people, and fearfulness, their predictive validity for adoption and post-adoption adjustment, and how stress in the shelter environment can mask underlying temperament. It discusses the practical use of personality profiling to reduce stress, improve enrichment, and guide handling. The topic links the science of feline individual differences to applied welfare and to improving outcomes for cats in rehoming systems.