Interacting with a shy cat
July 1, 2016
Nothing can get in the way of cats!
July 2, 2016Is your cat your perfect match?
What’s better than an online personality test? An online cat personality test. After testing about 2,800 domestic cats, researchers found something interesting: Cats are not too different from us humans.
Many psychologists subscribe to the theory that all people have five broad personality traits, known as the “Big Five“: extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness and neuroticism … and cats have their own ‘Big Five’.
Here are the Feline Five:
1. Skittishness — This one’s akin to neuroticism in people. Cats that earned high skittishness scores are more anxious and fearful; calm and trusting cats had low scores.
2. Outgoingness — This is the equivalent of extroversion in humans. Highly outgoing cats are curious and active; those with low scores are aimless and “quitting,” according to the test.
3. Dominance — This one belongs just to felines. Cats that are bullying and aggressive to their peers got high scores; cats that are friendly and submissive to other felines scored low.
4. Spontaneity — Another one that’s cat-specific. High scores indicate impulsive, erratic cats; low scores went to predictable, constrained cats.
5. Friendliness — This is akin to agreeableness in people. Highly friendly cats tend to be affectionate, while those with low scores are solitary and irritable.
Some people worry that keeping their cats inside will negatively affect their personalities, but most cats rank as typical whether they’re behind closed doors or roaming the streets, which is “really good news for people who keep their cats indoors,” he said. “The research suggests that it’s actually okay to cats.”
Source: washingtonpost.com
