Kuo's cat study

KUO Zing Yang was a whiz kid. He was born in China, got his first degree from Fudan University in Shanghai and then went to get his PhD from Berkeley in California. He was just 25 years old.

He returned to China, founded the Department of Psychology at Fudan University, and later became the president of Zhejiang University.

Kuo was both an experimental and physiological psychologist and a philosopher. Although the terms weren’t used back then, he was one of the pioneers in epigenetics, the idea that behaviour can cause a temporary change in the way genes are expressed.

In his paper, The Genesis Of The Cat’s Responses To The Rat, published in the Journal Of Comparative Psychology (1930), Kuo describes how he raised cats in different circumstances.

Kuo raised some kittens in isolation, in a rat-killing environment and in the same cage with rats. He looked at differences in food-habit, that is, vegetarianism vs non-vegetarianism. He tested his cats immediately after feeding as well as 12 hours after feeding to see if hunger made a difference.

He looked at what happened to the kittens if they saw another cat kill a rat. He used albino rats, wild grey rats and mice to see if the species of prey made a difference. He also tried to train cats to fear rats. (Don’t ask how; it’s mean.)

His conclusion?

“Our study has shown that kittens can be made to kill a rat, to love it, to hate it, to fear it or to play with it. It depends on the life history of the kitten,” he said.

Food for thought, isn’t it?