What Your Cat Actually Thinks of You (The Research Will Surprise You)
What Your Cat Actually Thinks of You (The Research Will Surprise You)
If you've ever locked eyes with your cat from across the room and wondered what's going on in their head, you're in the right place. Cat behavior researchers have spent years studying the human-cat bond, and what they've found changes everything about how we understand our cats.
Your Dog Knows You're Human. Your Cat Does Not.
John Bradshaw, an anthrozoologist and cat behavior expert at the University of Bristol has spent years observing how cats interact with humans and other cats. His conclusion is stunning: cats think humans are alpha cats.
Dogs change their behavior the moment a human enters the picture. Cats show no such shift. And according to Bradshaw, that's not indifference. That's inclusion. Your cat isn't tolerating you. They've absorbed you into their social world entirely.
Putting their tails up, rubbing against our legs, sitting beside us, grooming us, these are actions cats only take with each other. When your cat rubs against your legs? That's actually a sign of respect. Bradshaw notes that cats don't rub up against cats they consider inferior. You outrank them, and they know it. (1)
And yes, they think you're clumsy. In Bradshaw's own words: "Not many cats trip over people, but we trip over cats." (1)
Do Cats Get Attached to Their Owners? Yes, Deeply.
The idea that cats are independent loners who don't need us is one of the most persistent myths in cat ownership. A landmark 2019 study from Oregon State University's Human-Animal Interaction Lab finally tested it.
Published in Current Biology, the study empirically showed for the first time that cats attach to their owners just as deeply as babies attach to their mothers. (2)
Researchers used the same test (the Secure Base Test) that humans use to measure infant bonding. The results were remarkable: 64.3% of kittens were securely attached to their owners. When the same test was run on adult cats, the number held: 65.8% secure. For comparison, 65% of human infants show secure attachment to their caregivers.
Lead researcher Kristyn Vitale put it plainly: "There's long been a biased way of thinking that all cats behave in an aloof manner. But the majority of cats use their owner as a source of security. Your cat is depending on you to feel secure when they are stressed out." (2)
That cat who hides from strangers and seems standoffish? They most likely have an insecure attachment style, not indifference.
Your Cat Notices When Something Is Off With You
Your cat isn't just watching you, they're reading you. Research published in Behavioral Processes found that cats respond differently to people based on their emotional state, picking up on shifts through scent, body language, and facial expressions. (4)
A 2015 study in Animal Cognition by animal behaviorist Isabella Merola and colleagues at the University of Milan took this further. When cats encountered an unfamiliar object, 79% looked to their owner's face first before deciding how to react, adjusting their behavior based on the emotional signal their owner gave. (5)
Researchers call this "social referencing." It's the same behavior seen in human infants and dogs. Your cat isn't staring at you blankly. They're checking in.
Why Does My Cat Meow at Me (But Not Other Cats)?
Here's something many cat owners don't know: adult cats don't meow at other cats.
Kittens meow at their mothers to signal hunger, cold, or distress. It's hardwired survival behavior. But as John Bradshaw documents in Cat Sense, feral adult cats are largely silent with one another. "Cats rarely meow at one another, whereas the meow is the pet cat's best-known call." (1)
A 2011 study published in Behavioral Processes by veterinary behaviorist Seong C. Yeon and colleagues at Gyeongsang National University confirmed this. House cats meowed far more frequently than feral cats, and directed those meows specifically at humans. When feral cats did meow, it was indiscriminate: at humans, dolls, and dogs alike. House cats had developed something the ferals hadn't; a targeted vocal language for the people in their lives. (6)
Your cat stopped meowing to other cats the moment they didn't need to anymore, but never stopped meowing to you. In a very real sense, you never stopped being someone worth talking to.
So What Does Your Cat Actually Think of You?
They think you're family. A large, clumsy, beloved family member who controls the food and is bad at picking up scent signals. They've invented a language specifically to communicate with you. They track your emotional state from across the room. And when they're stressed, you're the one they look to for reassurance.
Cat owners have known this all along. The data just took a while to arrive, and now ethologists and animal behaviorists have the receipts to prove it.
Your cat already knows you're one of the good ones. Our store is for cat parents who actually pay attention. Shop now.
Sources:
(1). Bradshaw, J. (2013). Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet. Basic Books. Via National Geographic interview, January 2014. link
(2). Vitale, K.R., Behnke, A., & Udell, M.A.R. (2019). Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans. Current Biology, 29(18). Via Oregon State University Newsroom, September 2019. link
(3). Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket), Så sköter du din katt ("How to care for your cat"), under the Animal Welfare Act (2018:1192) and Animal Welfare Ordinance (2019:66). link
(4). Quaranta, A., D'Ingeo, S., Amoruso, R., & Siniscalchi, M. (2020). Emotion recognition in cats. Animals, 10(7). link
(5). Merola, I., Lazzaroni, M., Marshall-Pescini, S., & Prato-Previde, E. (2015). Social referencing and cat–human communication. Animal Cognition, 18(3). link
(6). Yeon, S.C., Kim, Y.K., Park, S.J., Lee, S.S., Lee, S.Y., Suh, E.H., Houpt, K.A., Chang, H.H., Lee, H.C., Yang, B.G., & Lee, H.J. (2011). Differences between vocalizations evoked by social stimuli in feral cats and house cats. Behavioral Processes, 87(2), 183–189. link