Scientists Developed a Questionnaire to Find Out if Your Cat Is a Psychopath
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
What, exactly, is your cat thinking? Scientists came up with a questionnaire in 2021 that might give you some idea of where your feline friend fits on what's known as the triarchic model of psychopathy .
The model measures levels of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition in order to assess overall psychopathic tendencies. Ordinarily, the test is for human beings, of course, but here it's being applied to cats.
Having completed the survey – which you can find online – you'll be given what's called a CAT-Tri+ measure for your pet's level of psychopathy. The team is hoping that knowing this score can improve human and cat relationships.
"Our cats and the differences in their personalities inspired us to start this research," psychologist Rebecca Evans, from the University of Liverpool in the UK, told Motherboard .
"Personally, I am also interested in how owner perceptions of psychopathy in their cat can affect the cat-owner relationship. My cat Gumball scores relatively highly on the disinhibition scale – which means he can be quite vocal, proximity-seeking and excitable."
The questionnaire asks for information about how adventurous your cat is when exploring, how it reacts to danger, how it responds to other cats , whether or not it needs constant stimulation , and how well it follows house rules.
Related behaviors – including sudden mood changes , aggression towards new people, and reactions to being petted – are also explored.
In each instance you can mark your feline on a scale of "does not describe my cat" to "describes my cat extremely well".
Other factors, measuring human-unfriendliness and pet-unfriendliness, are also included in the test, to help understand the relationship between the cat and owner .
From a total of 46 responses overall, you can work out your cat's CAT-Tri+ score for psychopathy. In humans, psychopathy is often characterized by a lack of empathy and a tendency to manipulate others – though psychopaths can appear normal and charming on the surface.
"It is likely that all cats have an element of psychopathy as it would have once been helpful for their ancestors in terms of acquiring resources: for example food, territory , and mating opportunities," Evans said .
The ultimate aim of the study was to give us a better understanding of our cats . Those that score more highly for boldness might benefit from spending more time with scratching posts or climbing obstacles, for example.
Unwanted cats are still often abandoned or left to shelters (where they may be euthanized), and the research team hopes that a psychological study like this can help identify unwanted behaviors in cats, so owners can perhaps make adjustments to their environments or training accordingly.
Relationships between 2,042 cat owners and their pets were studied in order to come up with the final questionnaire, with the researchers also able to tease out some patterns from the volunteers who had already answered the questions.
"Disinhibition and pet-unfriendliness predicted a higher quality cat-owner relationship; meanness and boldness predicted a lower quality relationship," the researchers write in their paper .
The research has been published in the Journal of Research in Personality .
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I prefer inscrutible cats that know me like a book.
To be more accurate, the question addresses what the owner THINKS the cat is thinking, which are two different things.
My cat is not a psycho but she is a sadist
My cat was very friendly, VERY smart and deadly for birds until we moved to a house with lots of coyotes around and we never let him outside again, nor did he want to. Like I said, VERY smart. And, he understood everything I said. Best guy ever.
Mine, like all others that came and went before them, all pretend not to understand me, but they do.
Love the picture.
Evening..let my cat out last night and then it was time for bed..called her no sign of the little dear.. great..
Turned the spot light on and it was pouncing around under the grape vine..that means either a frog or a mouse she has found.. turned out it was a mouse so l left her to it.
12.20am I heard the cat flap go and a muffled meow..then thump bump..hmm so turn the light on the little dear had brought the mouse in and dropped it and thing was off like a frog in a sock..
Bloooody hell, flew out of bed so here is the cat and I running around he bedroom, bathroom and dunny trying to catch the damn thing..I finally cornered the mouse caught it in an ice cream container and chucked it outside. Last I saw it shot into the tomato bush..
Then the little dear promptly stomps up to its dish and starts bellowing.. not sure if anyone else in town would be feeding the flaming cat at 12.30am in the morning..
With that face how could you say no?
Morning Fishy..very easily when it is sitting on me at 3am bellowing because it thinks its dish is empty..
Lol my cat used to bring me mice and birds as presents, well truthfully just their heads. Such a sweetheart.
Mine used to bring me baby birds she had almost killed, but not quite. I'd have to finish them off. I wonder if she was trying to teach me how to hunt?
Mishka has only caught 3 birds in her 15 years..each time she got such a shock she dropped them when I yelled at her..they flew off as she hadn't bitten them..
Don't have to worry about that now with her being 15, but obviously still can grab a mouse on the ground..
She does stalk the magpies there are 4 of them but I let her..she grabs on of those and she won't know what hit her..they all stick together and attack if one of them sends out a distress call..
I feed the Maggies every morning..they are the 5th generation that come now..
TBH, I thought it was a given that cats are psychopaths in general. And I say that as a cat lover.