The purpose of this study was to investigate the development and the stability across
situations and over time of three temperament traits in young foals: propensity to react to
humans, propensity to react to novelty, and propensity to react to suddenness. In a
comparative study, we examined the reactions of animals in three independent groups (N=
27) tested at 3, 12, and 24 weeks of age, respectively. We observed that human avoidance
and novel object approach behaviors are quasi inexistent in the group tested at 3 weeks, but …

Temperament is generally defined as a set of individual differences in behavioral tendencies
that are present early in life and are relatively stable across various kinds of situations and
over the course of time (Bates, 1987; Goldsmith et al., 1987). These behavioral tendencies
are called dimensions or traits (Eysenck, 1967), and include fearfulness, activity, sociability,
aggressiveness, etc.(for a review, see Gosling, 2001).