Cats Mimic Their Owners' Personalities, New Study Finds

Jul 01, 2019 by apost team

Cats, although worshipped as gods in Ancient Egypt, are usually pictured to be independent and indifferent. In actuality, cats can mimic the traits of the human that they are closest to. Researchers published a study in the PLOS ONE journal about similarities in behavior between cats and their human counterparts. If your cat is regularly grumpy, emotional, neurotic, overweight, or disagreeable, you could be the one to blame! Here's why:

The researchers conducted survey and personality tests on more than 3,300 cat owners and found that the owners themselves had similar traits and could be at fault for those traits in their cats! Questions in the surveys that helped measure the owner's personality were related to agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness to new experiences. The study shows evidence of clear parallels regarding the relationship between the personality and well-being of the owner and the lifestyle, behavior, and welfare of the cat.

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For example, the results in the study found that owners with higher agreeableness were generally associated with their cats having a more positive well being. Whereas owners with higher scores for neuroticism reported more incidences of on-going medical conditions in their cats, including being overweight, and behavioral problems.

Lauren Finka, the study's co-author and an animal welfare researcher at Nottingham Trent University, says that a majority of owners consider their pets family members and have close social bonds with them.

“It’s therefore very possible that pets could be affected by the way we interact with and manage them, and that both these factors are in turn influenced by our personality differences," Finka said. 

Scientists have found felines really are copycats and develop personalities that mirror their owners. Danielle Gunn-Moore, Edinburgh University's professor of feline medicine, says that cats are a “mini-me” and are strongly affected by the people around them.

The study did also explain that there is plenty of research and further steps that are needed to understand how and if the personality of the owner influences a cat with more behavioral and health problems and certain personality attributes.

What do you think about these results? How similar are you and your cat? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this article along to any friends or family members who are cat-people.