Adult cats (Felis silvestris catus) are typically quite autonomous, even in their social relationships, and not necessarily dependent on others to provide a sense of security and safety, according to a new research published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
The new study shows that while dogs perceive their owners as a safe base, the relationship between people and their cats appears to be quite different. Image credit: Kitty Green / CC BY-SA 2.0.
“The domestic cat has recently passed the dog as the most popular companion animal in Europe, with many seeing a cat as an ideal pet for owners who work long hours,” said co-author Prof Daniel Mills of the University of Lincoln, UK.
“Previous research has suggested that some cats show signs of separation anxiety when left alone by their owners, in the same way that dogs do, but the results of our study show that they are in fact much more independent than canine companions,” he added.
“It seems that what we interpret as separation anxiety might actually be signs of frustration.”
Prof Mills and his colleague, Alice Potter from the University of Lincoln’s School of Life Sciences, adapted the Ainsworth Strange Situation Test (SST), which has been widely used to demonstrate that the bond between young children or pet dogs with their primary carer can be categorized as a ‘secure attachment’ – where the carer is seen as a focus of safety and security in potentially threatening or unfamiliar environment.
The study observed the relationships between twenty cats and their owners, placing the pets in an unfamiliar environment together with their owner, with a stranger and also on their own.
In varying scenarios, it assessed three different characteristics of attachment: (i) the amount of contact sought by the cat; (ii) the level of passive behavior; and (iii) signs of distress caused by the absence of the owner.
“Although our cats were more vocal when the owner rather than the stranger left them with the other individual, we didn’t see any additional evidence to suggest that the bond between a cat and its owner is one of secure attachment,” Prof Mills explained.
“This vocalization might simply be a sign of frustration or learned response, since no other signs of attachment were reliably seen. In strange situations, attached individuals seek to stay close to their carer, show signs of distress when they are separated and demonstrate pleasure when their attachment figure returns, but these trends weren’t apparent during our research.”
“For pet dogs, their owners often represent a specific safe haven; however it is clear that domestic cats are much more autonomous when it comes to coping with unusual situations.”
“It seems that generally cats do not appear to attach to owners as a focus of safety and security in the same way that dogs do or children do towards their parents as demonstrated by their behavior in a strange situation test,” the scientists said.
“However, cats do appear to have a different relationship with their owner compared to a stranger, but the extent to which this is conditioned as a result of incidental interactions or built upon the fulfillment of an intrinsic psychological social need is unknown.”
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Potter A & Mills DS. 2015. Domestic Cats (Felis silvestris catus) Do Not Show Signs of Secure Attachment to Their Owners. PLoS ONE 10 (9): e0135109; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0135109
