To study the personality of cats, since they are not particularly collaborative subjects unlike dogs, scientists usually rely on them to the questionnaires filled out by the bosses. The problem is that the answers are often taken for granted as they are, without verifying whether they are reliable. The opposite of what the University of Helsinki did, which created a new questionnaire with 138 points in depth and validated. Thanks to it, he gathered information on 4300 domestic cats of 26 breeds and identified seven main traits of their character and behavior.
A reliable way of collecting information
To ensure the reliability of the data, the researchers used various statistical and practical methods. For example, they asked the cat owners to fill out the questionnaire a second time months after the first time, or have another person who lives in the same house fill it out. The information was confirmed to be coherent, consistent and useful for the purpose of the research.
The seven personality traits of cats
More or less present and variously combined, the seven traits deduced by scholars they describe personality and behavior of individual cats, but also in principle the general character of some species. Specifically, the traits are:
– vivacity / playfulness
– fearfulness
– aggression towards human beings
– sociability towards human beings
– sociability towards cats
– problems with the litter box
– excessive cleaning and licking
The latter two are not true personality traits, but they are useful indicators of that cat is suffering from some form of stress. “The most fearful breed are the Russian blues, while the Abyssinians are the least fearful. The Bengals are the liveliest, the Persians and Exotic Shorthairs are the most passive. The species most prone to excessive cleansing. they are the Siamese and the Balinese, while the Turco Van are those who have registered the greatest aggression towards humans and the least sociability towards cats “, says one of the authors, Salla Mikkola.
The study was published in Animals magazine.
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