They are said to be distant, calculating, almost incapable of truly loving us... What if this reputation for coldness was just a huge misunderstanding? A dive into what researchers have discovered about the (very real) hearts of cats.
They are said to be distant, calculating, almost incapable of truly loving us... What if this reputation for coldness was just a huge misunderstanding? A dive into what researchers have discovered about the (very real) hearts of cats.
For a long time, it has been described as cold, calculating, and incapable of forming real attachments... This cliché of the indifferent cat has stuck to the species for generations, yet nothing could be further from the truth.
This myth partly stems from a very concrete biological reality. Unlike dogs, whose wolf ancestors worked in packs with humans to guard herds or hunt, cats have long hunted alone, on their own initiative, without ever needing to decode our gestures or expressions to survive.
Their wild ancestors actually viewed humans more as potential enemies. Dogs have developed an almost obsessive attention to the human face; cats have not, simply because their way of life did not require it.
However, this difference in style does not mean a lack of feeling. It mainly explains why a cat's signals of affection are more subtle, easier to miss... and therefore more easily misinterpreted.
Purring, for most owners, is THE undeniable sign of feline happiness. However, science invites us to seriously nuance this interpretation.
Physically, this sound arises from the rapid vibration of a set of muscles that cause the vocal cords to collide, somewhat like the teeth of a rattle, both during inhalation and exhalation. This mechanism is believed to have evolved primarily in kittens: as soon as they nurse, they begin to purr, and the mother responds by purring back.
This signal actually conveys a very simple request, a sort of stay still near me. The kitten uses it to encourage its mother not to move during nursing, even if it means delaying the moment she has to go hunt for her own food.
In adults, purring often retains this negotiation function more than it expresses pure joy. Some cats even add a tone similar to meowing, more insistent, when they demand food, and return to a softer purr once satisfied. It can also be heard, more disturbingly, in injured or highly distressed cats, proving that it does not systematically reflect a state of well-being.
If purring can be confusing, other gestures are much more reliable for judging a cat's attachment. Mutual grooming between adult felines never occurs between two individuals who do not like each other; two cats that hate each other simply never lick one another.
When a cat licks its owner, it is likely translating this same social language. Some may even do it after mischief, as if to apologize for behavior they deem problematic, even if the owner hasn't noticed.
Rubbing follows a similar logic, often accompanied by a very clear visual signal: the raised tail. When two cats greet each other this way, the approaching one usually waits to see if the other also raises its tail before moving closer, a mechanism impossible to replicate with a human, which shows that the cat must have learned to decode our body language to adapt its own.
Moreover, this rubbing is not self-serving: a cat that rubs against another does not receive food or petting in return, and each simply resumes their activity afterward. This is why this gesture, when directed at a human or even another animal in the house, can only be explained by a social and affectionate motivation.
The strongest evidence that cats actually feel good in the presence of humans came almost by chance, about twenty years ago. Researchers were trying to understand why some wild felines had such difficulty reproducing in captivity.
The initial hypothesis was simple: the stress generated by confinement in small spaces prevented certain females from conceiving. However, it was necessary to objectively measure this stress rather than relying on mere impressions.
While searching for a reliable method to assess anxiety in these animals, scientists stumbled upon results that went far beyond the initial question of reproduction. What they discovered was directly related to the relationship between cats and humans.
To objectively assess stress, researchers relocated several territorial felines—two pumas, four Bengal leopard cats, and one Geoffroy's cat—from their usual enclosures to a completely unfamiliar space. The principle was straightforward: these species mark and fiercely defend their territory, so losing their landmarks should generate measurable anxiety.
The scientists then measured cortisol, the stress hormone, in the urine of each animal. Unsurprisingly, the levels rose sharply from the very first day, before gradually decreasing over about ten days as the felines acclimated to their new environment.
In parallel, the team monitored eight domestic cats housed in enclosures similar to those in a zoo, four known to be very affectionate towards humans and four rather distant. Each underwent a daily veterinary examination, an experience that many cats find unpleasant.
Unsurprisingly, this examination caused a spike in cortisol levels in the four least sociable cats, evidence that they indeed experienced this moment as a source of stress. It was the continuation of the experiment that would prove to be the most enlightening.
In their own enclosure, the four affectionate cats displayed a slightly higher cortisol level than the four distant ones, a sign that they were not coping well with simply being locked up, alone, without stimulation. But when the veterinary staff increased their visits and daily interactions with them, their stress levels significantly decreased.
In other words, the mere act of being approached and handled by humans, even in a setting that most pet cats would find rather distressing, had a measurable calming effect on these affectionate felines. This is far from the image of the cat that barely tolerates our presence.
It would likely be an exaggeration to speak of true separation anxiety as seen in dogs. However, these cats appeared noticeably more relaxed, happier in the literal sense, when receiving human attention than when left to their own devices.
If cats were only attached to us for food-related reasons, the relationship should logically collapse as soon as that interest disappears. However, many owners today are frankly disgusted by their cat's hunting skills, yet continue to love them unreservedly as pets.
Part of the explanation lies in the very appearance of the cat. Its eyes positioned at the front of its face, unlike most mammals whose eyes look to the sides, its round head and wide forehead unconsciously remind us of the features of a human infant, a powerful trigger for benevolent behavior in humans.
Studies have even shown that simply looking at pictures of cute kittens or puppies temporarily improves the fine motor skills of the observed individuals, as if the brain is preparing to gently handle a fragile being. Therefore, the cat did not need to evolve to please us: it already had, from the very beginning, the right combination of traits.
To measure how utility alone is not enough to explain our attachment, one only needs to compare the cat to another equally competent pest hunter: the ferret. This small carnivore can be just as effective as a cat against rodents, yet it has never captured the hearts of the general public in the same way, even though it has a few loyal admirers.
The difference lies largely in appearance. The ferret's eyes, like those of most animals, look to the sides rather than forward, which does not trigger in us that almost parental tenderness reflex that a face with forward-facing eyes evokes.
The story of the teddy bear illustrates the same phenomenon. Realistic in its early days, it gradually transformed throughout the 20th century into a smaller body, a larger head, a wider forehead, and a shorter snout, modifications guided not by children, who were just as happy with a bear true to the real animal, but by adults, especially women, who bought them.
The cat, on the other hand, has never needed this artificial evolution: it already naturally possessed this combination of endearing traits. This charm has even been pushed to its peak in certain cartoon characters whose heads, deliberately disproportionate, far exceed the size of their bodies.
Physical charm explains part of our affection, but it is not enough to create a true bond. The panda, for example, enjoys enormous popularity in nature conservation campaigns due to traits very similar to those of a cat, yet no one would seriously consider making it a pet: it simply does not like people much, nor even its own kind.
What truly distinguishes the cat is its genuine openness to relationships, its concrete ability to form a social bond with the human species, far beyond mere appearance. Sometimes, one example is worth all the scientific demonstrations: a distant cat, who stubbornly refused to settle on anyone's lap and fled at the arrival of visitors, could nonetheless rush to the sound of a specific person's voice whom it had taken a liking to, or wait for hours in the garden for its owner to return, jumping into the car purring loudly and rubbing its face against theirs.
This kind of behavior, directed towards a specific person and absent towards other household members who fed it just as much, is difficult to explain in any way other than through genuine emotional attachment. It would be highly unlikely that food explains such a marked preference, since it was not even the person who filled the bowl.
Another persistent misconception is that the color of a cat's coat reveals its temperament. In British popular culture, tortoiseshell cats are thought to be mischievous, marbled tabbies are seen as homebodies, striped cats are considered independent, and white spots are believed to have a calming effect on their character.
Associating an animal's appearance with its character seems to be part of our natural instincts, even when evidence is sorely lacking. Some researchers have hypothesized that the biochemistry producing certain coat colors might also influence brain development, a phenomenon called pleiotropy, but concrete evidence in cats remains thin.
However, there are real exceptions that can be explained differently. In purebred cats, where the genetic pool available to produce a specific color is limited, the temperament of the most commonly used male breeder for that color can randomly spread throughout a lineage, without a direct cause-and-effect link to the color itself.
The most striking case is that of white cats with blue eyes, who are almost always deaf. Here, the explanation is purely genetic: the dominant white coat gene is simply located very close, on the same chromosome, to the gene responsible for deafness, which means that both traits are almost always passed on together without a direct biological link between color and hearing.
Unlike dogs, no breeder has ever selected cats for their friendliness or ability to bond. The domestication of cats occurred almost exclusively through natural selection: around 10,000 years ago, wild cats approached the first grain storage facilities to hunt the rodents attracted by this concentration of food.
Humans, noticing the service provided, began to tolerate and then encourage their presence by leaving them milk or scraps. The role of companion emerged soon after, likely very early as well, with the first serious traces of cats kept as pets dating back about 4,000 years in Egypt.
The affection that cats can show towards each other, particularly within the same feline family, served as raw material for this evolution. Domestication simply allowed for the extension of this same emotional repertoire, initially reserved for their peers, to humans who fed and protected the cats during times when prey became scarce.
As a result, the cat's ability to bond with us was never a deliberately sought goal, but rather a byproduct of its adaptation to a new way of life. A trait acquired almost despite itself, and which continues to evolve today.
Not all cats, however, form attachments with the same ease, and genetics plays a real role in this. An experiment compared the litters of two tomcats, one known for producing friendly kittens and the other for producing less friendly ones: when faced with an unfamiliar object, the offspring of the friendly father explored it much faster and longer than the others, demonstrating an inherited difference that goes beyond mere affection.
The number of handling experiences received during the very first months is equally important. A study conducted on kittens from nine different litters showed that those who were least handled before eight weeks were initially more reluctant to be picked up, but this tendency reversed in their new homes once they had bonded with their new owners.
After about a year, a cat's attitude towards humans stabilizes, regardless of the amount of handling received in early life. Genetics and early experience thus interact continuously, and a poorly handled kitten, born for example in an overwhelmed shelter or to a fearful mother, risks never developing a fully flourishing attachment to its owners.
This also explains why some cats, despite all the care they receive, sometimes choose to disappear for good. The life of a companion simply does not suit all feline temperaments, which in no way undermines the reality of affection in the vast majority of them: far from being indifferent, they have simply learned, in their discreet way, to show it to us.
Author Audrey on 17 September 2024
Health and Beauty : Medicine
Author Audrey on 06 February 2023
Health and Beauty : Medicine