Do cats develop the same character traits as their owners?

According to statistics, cats have conquered households worldwide. Two years ago, there were over 6,000,000 domestic cats in Britain. Many of these furballs have taken on the character traits of their owners. In fact, according to a British study, cats copy their owners!

Cats who reflect their owners

The study, conducted by Nottingham Trent University and the University of Lincoln in the UK, reveals that cats are becoming so much like their owners that they even mimic their owners' personalities. Published in Plos One, the study suggests that felines adapt to their environment and copy their owners' behaviour.

So if your cat tends to be neurotic, it may have copied this personality trait from you!

In fact, according to the researchers who based themselves on 3,000 cats and their owners, if you feel anger, anxiety, depression, loneliness, or fear, your little furball is likely to have the same feelings!

Laura Finka, an animal welfare researcher at the University of Nottingham Trend, was quoted in The Telegraph as saying:

Many people regard their pets as family members and therefore form close bonds with them. It is therefore logical that our pets are affected in some way by the way we interact with them, and that they are de facto influenced by our different personalities.

The cats that showed stress and anxiety in the study belonged, for the most part, to people who also suffer from these ailments.

A cat to better understand your own personality?

This is not the first study made on the similarities between felines and their owners. Many studies have explained certain of our cats’ behaviours. For example, studies have shown that cats belonging to extroverts are more likely to enjoy the outdoors, outgoing people have well-behaved cats, and felines belonging to playful people are healthier!

So, which of your personality traits do you think your cat copies?