Introduction
Experts in the field of studying cats have discovered direct patterns between the animal’s nature and its owners’ behavior. It was found that in families where people suffered from various neuroses and increased anxiety, cats were more likely to have behavioral problems (Karn-Buehler & Kuhne, 2022). Based on behavioral theory, the animal is forced to conform to the conditions of its habitat (Grandin, 2022). Some researchers concluded that the relationship between the owner and the pet is somewhat reminiscent of the relationship between a parent and a child (Farnworth et al., 2019). Therefore, the cats can express some of the emotions inherent to the owners. The primary focus of the research is to analyze the jealousy correlations between cats and owners.
Hypothesis
A domestic cat’s well-being and behavior directly depend on the attitude of the owner (Takagi, 2021), I am striving to test whether the character of the cats is affected by human personality traits in expressing jealousy.
Methodology
For the research, the observational method was used when creating particular conditions for pets to respond to. Testing the hypothesis also required conducting interviews with the owners. The sample included the notification of the responses of ten cats and owners to jealousy provocative situations. The reactions were estimated from the two perspectives. The first included the correlation between human and cat jealousy. The second perspective was related to the estimation regarding the change in the cats’ behavior when the owners applied the child-parent model to the animal.
Results
Five of the observed cats expressed the symptoms of aggressiveness when the owners’ attention was directed to other subjects. Four of the cats’ owners reported having jealousy as their personality trait. One owner stated that the cat is aggressive in almost all surroundings due to the traumatic experience of being beaten. Two of the ten observed cats responded without aggression but still strived to win the people’s attention. The owners highlighted that the notion of jealousy in their character traits is rare. Three out of ten cats expressed no reaction to the provocative event. The owners reported conscious attempts to avoid jealousy in their relationships with family and friends. Based on the observations, seven out of ten owners applied the child-parent model to their pets. Five cats are from the group showing aggressiveness to the provocative situation. The exceptional aggressiveness of cats was reported by owners alloying this model after childbirth in three out of five cases. The correlation between cat aggression levels and the owners’ behavior can be found in Appendix A.
Correlations Between Human and Cat Jealousy
Based on the three defined cases, the cats whose owners are prone to being jealous of their children or partners showed aggressiveness. Especially intolerant cats’ behavior was noted in families with no children. In such cases, cats were treated as children. When the owner started relationships with a partner of the opposite sex, cats were reported to be aggressive. On the contrary, people with healthy relationships showed the example of a typical attitude towards others which cats copied. This practical example proves the results gained by researchers stating that cats are prone to simulating the behaviors of owners. Cats have a limited idea of time. They can learn to distinguish between different time intervals, but only when these intervals are limited to a few seconds (Koppel et al., 2020). Animals may need help remembering a decently distant past. Therefore, for cats, jealousy is an instant emotion they experience when they see another person, not them, receive attention.
Despite the fact that the direct correlation between the personality traits of owners and cats can be observed, the jealousy of cats is conditioned by natural instincts. Human jealousy, despite also being an instinct of ownership, is more complex under the prism of social ethics and norms. Cats are territorial animals because their comfort zone is not a place close to a person but a home (Takagi, 2021). They will protect their borders from all new subjects that rely on them. Cats create bonds with their owners, which results in jealous reactions to potentially harmful and provocative events (Arahori et al., 2020). An adverse reaction to potential situations that cause jealousy indicates that their behavior must be related to the bonds they have established with their owners.
If a cat feels that its territorial rights are being challenged, it can behave negatively, even be aggressive, which has been proven in the study. In other words, the result can be interpreted in a way that proves the effect of human personality traits on a cat’s reactions and behaviors in terms of jealousy. However, the cats’ behavior is conditioned by the primary instincts having more simplified expressions because of the lack of abstract thinking.
Child-parent Model
When a child appears in the family, jealousy also causes a struggle to conserve resources. Cats strive for a person’s attention, playing with him, timely feeding, and everything else related to direct interaction with the owner. Thus, the behavior of a domestic cat can be shaped by the personality traits that its owner has, upbringing and interaction. Cats generally treat people not in the same way they treat other cats. Based on this, the scientists concluded that cats also consider people as older cats and transfer parent-child relationships to owners (Farnworth et al., 2019). The experiment results show that along with the fact that cats perceive us as parents, they also perceive us as a resource or as a valuable source of resources.
Human jealousy involves regrets about unfulfilled plans and dreams, memories of significant events in the past, and planning for the future of one’s behavior. All these are elements of abstract thinking, which appears in people from about two or three years old. In cats, abstract thinking, if not wholly absent, is present in a minimal volume (Koppell et al., 2020). At the heart of pet jealousy lies the fear of another object of attention as a rival (Arahori et al., 2020). The problem is often associated with the fear of losing the love and resources that the animal bestows on the owner. When people treat the cats like children, the animals get total comfort, which is horrifying to lose. As a result, the animal can express an exceptional level of aggressiveness or “jealousy.”
Conclusion
Therefore, the hypothesis can be proved that the character of the cats is affected by human personality traits in expressing jealousy. Significant factors affecting the aggressive expression of jealousy are the child-parents’ attitude toward the animals and the owners’ inclination to jealousy. The gained results are gained locally and should be investigated further in more large-scale research. However, even such small sampled results reveal information regarding the cats’ psychology based on the behavioral theory conditioned by modified under the people’s impact instincts.
References
Arahori, M., Bucher, B., Chijiiwa, H., & Fujita, K. (2020). Domestic cats’ reactions to their owner and an unknown individual petting a potential rival. PLoS ONE, 9, 16–33.
Farnworth, M., Finka, l., Mills, D., & Ward, J. (2019). Owner personality and the wellbeing of their cats share parallels with the parent-child relationship. PLoS ONE, 14(2), 103–108.
Grandin, T. (2022). Genetics and the behavior of domestic animals. Elsevier.
Karn-Buehler & Kuhne, F. (2021). Perception of stress in cats by German cat owners and influencing factors regarding veterinary care. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 24(8), 700–708.
Koppel, K., Talavera, M., & Tsai, W. (2020). Generating consumer terminology to describe emotions in pet owners and their pets. Journal of Sensory Studies, 35(5).
Takagi, S. (2021). Developments in research on cat cognition and personality. In J.R. Anderson & H. Kuroshima, (Eds.), Comparative Cognition (pp. 287–303). Springer.
Appendix
Figure A shows that the high level of human jealousy and applying the child-parent model to the animal results in increased aggressive responses to the provocation event. The numerical data and the detailed response description are presented in the results section. Figure A shows the relative dependence based on gained responses of cats and interviews with owners.
