New Research Finally Proves Cats Aren't Assholes!

Cat lovers everywhere can rejoice as their claims are finally backed by science. People have often accused cats of being anti-social creatures, who only "love" their owners because they feed them. Some will even describe cats as "nature's cutest little sociopaths". But, according to a study performed by students of the Oregon State University, it turns out that cats do love the company provided by humans.

The study incorporated cognitive studies which had already been performed on dogs. The students took a sample group of cats from a mixture of shelter and home-raised environments with the intent of depriving them of stimuli for a few hours. Once the time had passed they allowed cats free reign in a room with different kinds of stimuli such as, social interactions, food, smelly objects,and toys. The results were rather a rather surprising contrast to the stereotypical behaviors associated with cats.

Among the observations were:

-No significant differences in the preferences between home-raised and shelter cats.
-50% of the cats preferred social interaction vs any other stimuli.
-Only a third of the cats preferred food over other stimuli.

The study concludes by stating that, perhaps it's simply people perceive cat's social structure to skew towards independence. But, their studies show that half of the sample group preferred to interact with other social creatures. The study goes further ahead to claim that certain variables might also be responsible for the cats behavior, and that history and breed might be important aspects to consider.

What does this mean? Well, similar to people, cats can vary in personalities. I'm certain even best friends don't want to spend every waking moment together, and dogs just follow a different social structure. But, one thing is certain, perhaps we've judged cats too harshly based on personal experience...

P.S.

I personally love the little guys, and I'm a huge cat fanatic. The cats above are my own Gatito and Mushu.

Source:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635716303424