Cat owners, how do you view your kitty ?
Answers will vary, but most will probably acknowledge that while their cat can be a sweetheart , it’s also a psychopathic murder machine.
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Now, research finally seems to support what cat people have known all along: cats are psychopaths.
English researchers surveyed pet owners.
The study , published by a team from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University took an interesting approach: asking pet owners about their pets, and attempting to attribute human standards of psychopathy to said pets.
What might make a cat a psychopath?
Putting aside the obvious answer of “most of the things they do,” researchers asked a comprehensive series of 549 questions. Placing cats on a human scale of psychopathy is hardly an exact science, but the study attempted to bridge this gap.
Various cat behaviors were analyzed.
The survey had questions asking cat owners if they agreed or disagreed with statements like, “My cat vocalises loudly for no apparent reason,” “My cat runs around the house for no apparent reason,” and “My cat does not appear to act guilty after misbehaving.”
It broke things down into the ‘triarchic’ concept of psychopathy.
This basically breaks things down into three categories for humans: boldness, meanness and disinhibition.
Needless to say, these categories can be applied to cats as well, but researchers also created new categories just for the felines: human-unfriendliness and pet-unfriendliness.
They created a whole new method.
Because of the new cat-specific categories, researchers gave their method of measuring psychopathy in cats a new title: the Cat Triarchic Plus, or CAT-Tri+. You can actually view the survey and answer its questions right here .
What does it all mean?
If you were thinking that the researchers just didn’t understand that this is the way cats are, they’re all cat people.
“My personal inspiration is my cat Axel, a fluffy and greedy little creature,” explained Minna Lyons, one of the authors.
Axel was a test subject.
Aside from the psychopathy quiz, some cats were studied in a more in-depth way. Minna Lyons’ cat Axel wore activity trackers to find out what he did with his day. Lyons said he was bold and wouldn’t hesitate to go into random houses and garages to search for food.
It all kind of makes sense.
Cats are excellent hunters, who rely on their instincts and speed to prey on a wide variety of creatures, big and small. It’s key to their survival. They can also hold down large territories.
How do these traits translate to a house cat?
Well, as it turns out, the very instincts that make cats such successful creatures in the wild turns them into weird little monsters when they’re cooped up in a house.
By human standards, many of those traits make them psychopaths.
Is your cat a psychopath?
Mine probably is, though she’s more of a furry little meatball with poor depth perception than a ferocious hunter.
Make sure to check out the full study here , and take the quiz about your own cat here .
