Underneath their aloof, antisocial exterior, cats are tender souls that really do form bonds with their human owners—just as children and dogs do.
A new Oregon State University study found that pet pusses display the same main connective styles as tail-waggers and tots.
“In both dogs and cats, attachment to humans may represent an adaptation of the offspring-caretaker bond,” according to lead author Kristyn Vitale, a researcher in OSU’s Human-Animal Interaction Lab.
“Attachment is a biologically relevant behavior,” she continued. “Our study indicates that when cats live in a state of dependency with a human, that attachment behavior is flexible and the majority of cats use humans as a source of comfort.”
The report, published this week in the journal Current Biology, describes a “secure base test,” in which the cat spends two minutes in a new room with their owner, then two minutes alone, before being reunited for another two minutes.
This allows analysts to establish the pets’ attachment behaviors.
Upon the caregiver’s return, cats with secure attachment are less stressed and balance their attention between the person and their surroundings—exploring the room, for instance.
Those with insecure attachment show signs of stress like twitching their tail and licking their lips, avoiding the person or clinging to them, or displaying sheer ambivalence.
A cat displays insecure attachment behavior by sitting in researcher Kristyn Vitale’s lap (via Oregon State University)
Behavioral experts watched dozens of kittens and adult cats, classifying the animals’ actions based on patterns in infants and pups.
Initially, 64.3 percent of kittens were categorized as securely attached and 35.7 percent as insecurely attached. Adult cats (one year or older) practically mirrored those numbers: 65.8 percent secure, 34.2 percent insecure.
Researchers, interested in whether socialization would change the data, conducted a six-week training course. They found no significant differences.
“Once an attachment style has been established between the cat and its caregiver, it appears to remain relatively stable over time, even after a training and socialization intervention,” Vitale said in a statement.
Considering cats retain certain juvenile traits into maturity and remain dependent on humans for care, it’s not exactly shocking that adult and baby felines scored so similarly.
What did surprise researchers is how closely the proportion of secure and insecure attachments matched those of human infants—65 percent of whom are securely attached to their caregiver.
“Cats that are insecure can be likely to run and hide or seem to act aloof,” Vitale said. “There’s long been a biased way of thinking that all cats behave this way. 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.”
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