T. Mary Foster

Therese Mary Foster is a New Zealand behavioural psychologist, and is professor emerita at the University of Waikato. Her research focuses on animal behaviour and behavioural analysis.

Academic career
Foster completed a MSc in psychology titled An investigation into choice between fixed-interval and mixed-interval schedules of reinforcement at the University of Auckland. She then went on to complete a PhD in psychology, also at Auckland, in 1976. Her thesis was on concurrent-chain choice, a type of reinforcement. Foster undertook professional training as a psychologist and then joined the faculty of the University of Waikato, rising to full professor. In 2017 Foster was appointed professor emerita.

Foster's research covers animal behaviour and psychology. Foster and William Temple set up the Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research Centre at Waikato. Foster was also responsible for co-leading the development of an applied behaviour analysis (ABA) programme at Waikato in 2006, with Dr James McEwan, aimed at training psychologists to work in education and disability. Foster has researched behaviour in animals including brushtail possums, cows, domestic chickens, dogs and horses, on subjects such as selective attention, visual discrimination and reinforcement timing. She trained chickens to use pecks to indicate their preferred choices, for instance they were able to indicate their preferred dust-bathing material, to communicate their preferred food, and whether they would prefer to be alone or with a more dominant chicken. She has also worked on human behaviour, in chronic pain patients and in autistic children.