This is a bit mad.
Whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, everyone who spends time with animals knows that they all have their own personalities.
Some are lazy and lie about the house all day, others are energetic and won’t stop until you’ve bounced a ball at them 50 times.
However, when it comes to cats a study has found that they mimic their owner’s personality.
The study, which was published in the journal PLOS ONE, saw that cats can literally be copyCATS when it comes to their owner’s emotional stability.
The research saw 3,000 cat owners being surveyed using the Big Five Inventory system. This looks at five broad traits which include extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.
Co-author of the study and animal welfare researcher Lauren Finka from Nottingham Trent University told The Telegraph: “Many owners consider their pets as a family member, forming 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.”
It found that people who rated higher in neuroticism had cats with more behavioural problems, while owners who said they were extroverted had cats that enjoyed being outside.
Lauren notes that while the study gives more understanding into the life of cats and their owners, more research needs to be done.
