If your cat stiffens into a furry yet adorable statuette every time you run a hand down his back, chances are he might not be too fond of your affectionate petting. Meow-ouch!
A new study from an international team of researchers published in the Journal Physiology and Behavior had the rather modest goal of understanding how felines and their domesticated humans socialize underneath the same roof. Researchers representing universities from the United Kingdom to Brazil examined the stress levels of cats in four different living situations: Those that lived alone (i.e. no other cats), those that lived in pairs, and those that lived in groups of three and four. Researchers measured the cats' levels of stress hormones in order to gauge their responses to human attention.
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