New Delhi: Cats are immensely likeable creatures and one of the most common pets. A furry feline looking in the eye and purring would make the coldest heart melt. But they are not always predictable, even the domestic cats would leave their humans perplexed with idiosyncrasies.
Feline behaviour has been a subject of investigation for long due to the different behavioural problems they exhibit. A new study has now found seven personality and behaviour traits in cats.
Though studies have been conducted before to understand feline behaviour, the validity and reliability of those studies were not confirmed.
In order to properly understand feline behaviour and personality, while ensuring sufficient validation and reliability assessment of the findings, researchers from the University of Helsinki conducted a study by collecting information of more than 4,300 cats, with an online questionnaire to be filled by cat owners.
The structure of the questionnaire was similar to that of Fe-BARQ (Feline Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire) — the format designed to provide standardised evaluations of the temperament and behaviour of cats.
After validating the questionnaires, the researchers found that cats display seven personality and behaviour traits in all.
The study was published in the Journal, Animals.
The 7 feline behaviour and personality traits
The study found that feline personality and behaviour included seven traits:
- Activity or playfulness
- Fearfulness
- Aggression towards humans
- Sociability towards humans
- Sociability towards other cats
- Litterbox problems
- Excessive grooming
Fearfulness conformed to previously named factors like shyness and neuroticism, the study found. The trait was found to be a combination of factors like sociability, stranger-directed aggression, and fear of novelty.
Some of the best known animal personality traits are boldness and shyness. Female cats and the cats with owner-reported problematic behaviour were found to be fearful. Activity/playfulness factor correlated with previously included factors like extraversion and openness. Older cats and fearful cats were less active or playful.
The aggression towards humans factor considered in this study was a combination of Fe-BARQ factors such as touch sensitivity/owner directed aggression, and resistance to restraint. This trait of aggression was sometimes classified as roughness and dominance. Older cats were more aggressive while cats living in households with multiple cats were found to be less aggressive.
The sociability towards humans factor had resemblance to a combination of sociability, directed calls/vocalisations, purring, attention seeking, trainability factors and separation-related behaviours. Sociability towards humans was also similar to traits like contact to people, friendliness, human nonsocial and amiability.
Female cats and fearful cats, and the cats with owner-related problematic behaviour were found to be less sociable towards humans. Active and playful cats were observed to be more sociable.
The sociability towards cats had similarity to factors such as cat social, aggression towards other cats, familiar cat aggression and dominance, the study states. Older cats, female cats, fearful cats, and cats with owner-reported problematic behaviour were found to be less sociable towards other cats.
The study explained that the last two factors, excessive grooming and litterbox issues — relieving themselves in inappropriate places, for example — were not personality traits, but behaviours that indicate a cat's sensitivity to stress.
The factors into which litterbox issues are divided in Fe-BARQ are inappropriate elimination and elimination preferences.
If a cat scored high in these factors, it is indicative of the fact that the cat is less tolerant to stress, and would exhibit an active reaction to stressful situations.
Fearful cats exhibit more excessive grooming, and older cats, male cats, cats living in households with multiple cats and with owners showing problematic behaviour, were found to exhibit litterbox issues.
It was found that though the breeds differed in all traits, some personality traits were more common in specific cat breeds.
The Russian Blue breed was found to be most fearful, while the Abyssian breed was the least fearful. Turkish Van showed the highest aggression towards humans, while American Curl showed the lowest.
On sociability towards cats, Oriental cats scored the highest, while Turkish Van scored the lowest. Siamese and Balinese were found to be the most sociable towards humans, while Exotic was the least sociable. Bengal Cat was the most active or playful, while Persian and Exotic were the least playful.
Litterbox issues were mostly found in Norwegian Forest Cat, and this trait was least observed in Korat. Siamese and Balinese exhibited excessive grooming the most, while American Curl showed the least.
Why do you need to understand a cat's personality?
Just like other animals, a domestic cat's personality is influenced by genetics, the environment, and their interactions. Understanding the cat's personality type will give their humans an idea about the animal’s environmental needs, which is essential for the cat's welfare.
For example, additional hiding places and a peaceful lifestyle of the owner may benefit fearful cats. Playful cats, who are more active than other individuals, may need more enrichment and activities in which they can keep themselves engaged. Also, when a pet's personality matches that of its owner, the latter tends to be more satisfied with the pet, some studies have found earlier.
Shelter adoption processes often match the personalities of people and cats. Also, the suitability of domesticating a cat in families with children is determined on the basis of the cat's personality.
One to six personality dimensions were found in previous research, and they differed between studies. Some researchers had used friendliness, aggressiveness, boldness, openness, activity, impulsiveness and dominance, while others used two dimensions — shyness-boldness factor and friendliness towards humans.
"The Feline Five" has resemblance to the human Big Five personality structure, and has five dimensions: agreeableness, dominance, extraversion, impulsiveness and neuroticism (personality trait characterised by instability, anxiety).
Pauleen C Bennett of La Trobe University and others observed six factors: playfulness, nervousness, amiability, dominance, demandingness and gullibility, while another study had found 23 factors for feline personality and problematic behaviour.
All of them had used questionnaires, but they were either partly validated or lacked validation completely, the University of Helsinki study noted.
Study Fact-Sheet
The researchers designed an online feline behaviour and personality questionnaire to gather cat behaviour data from the owners, states the study. They studied the structure of personality and behaviour in a dataset of more than 4,316 cats. The dataset was collected between March 2019 and September 2020.
Of the total number of cats, 49 per cent were females. The median age of the cats was 4.9. Also, the cats were grouped into 36 breed groups. The owners were asked to associate adjectives with their cat's behaviour or to give ratings to the cats based on their responses in several situations.
The questionnaire included three sections: behaviour, background and health.
For validation, the researchers evaluated internal consistency, which refers to the degree of correlation between different variables in a test. They even studied the convergent validity and discriminant validity, and inspected the reliability in time and between observers, and extracted factors. They also performed a brief examination of breed differences in personality and behaviour.
In a statement issued by the University of Helsinki, Mikkola S, the lead author of the study, said, "...we noted that the responses provided for the same cat were very similar, while the personality and behaviour traits were found to be reproducible and reliable. We also examined the validity of the questionnaire or whether it measures what it intended to measure. In these terms, too, the questionnaire functioned well."
The researchers note that in future, differences in personality and behaviour traits between male and female cats must be explored further, and that environmental and biological variables must also be considered for studying these differences in future.