This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s spring editorial intern Alexandrea Ciardella. Find her on Instagram at @a6ysma1. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
When people think of cats, the image that may come to mind is an aloof little creature that lives in your house. Cats can have different personalities; some cats may be friendlier, some may be a bit colder towards their owners, and some may even be a little crazy. However, recent studies suggest that some cats adopt their owner’s personalities, mirroring those around them and reflecting a personality to match their owner’s.
To gain some more context on the subject, let’s review cat-owner relationships. Most cats don’t even see their owners as “owners”, they likely see us as bigger cats, because they don’t change their social behaviors when interacting with us. They don’t see their owners as inferior to themselves; they view humans as clumsy, larger animals. This explains some cat behaviors like grooming and presenting us with dead birds; our cats believe that we have trouble fending for ourselves, so they interact with us in ways that think will help us survive or learn how to survive!
A recent study from Nottingham Trent University and the University of Lincoln suggests that cats can share a predominate personality trait with their owners. Five distinct personalities were studied, which involved agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness. If a person is more open or agreeable to both humans and cats, then their pet is likely to be more open as well. If a person is more anxious or stressed, then surprisingly, their cat is more likely to be stressed too.
I can see this behavior with my cat, Lilac. When Lilac was a kitten, she was shy but still had a curious personality. She loved to run around the house, play with her brother, and was cautious of strangers, but opened up to them once she knew they weren’t a threat. Over the years, however, she’s become more and more anxious and has resigned herself to staying upstairs in our bedrooms. She runs away at the slightest noise and gets aggressive whenever her brother gets near (though to be fair, we’re not sure if he’s trying to play with her or fight her).
Even though I may not be as scared as Lilac, I do have a similar level of anxiety that she seems to display. I have Generalize Anxiety Disorder and get stressed very easily, so it’s easy to make connections between me and Lilac. However, at the same time, Lilac started to grow more and more anxious while I was away at college, so it’s difficult to tell if she became anxious because I was there, or because I wasn’t there. But she always seems to be happy whenever I’m around!
I do wonder; does this phenomenon still happen if a cat has multiple owners? For instance, if the cat was adopted by a couple, does the cat take after one owner, or does the influence of two people combine into a cat’s personality?
Have you seen cats adopt their owner’s personality? Let us know in the comments below!
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