Good news: Study says your cat actually does want to chill with you
Cat lovers rejoice!
It's time to stop trying to convince your dog-lover friends that your cat doesn't hate you by sharing riveting stories of that one time Fluffers sat on your legs or the time you pet Cupcake and she didn't slink away. Now you can prove they love you with science!
New research from Oregon State University, published on Friday in Behavioural Processes, states that cats enjoy human contact more than they like eating.
Wait...are you saying...?
Yep, cats like hanging out with their humans more than they like eating. Honestly, I don't even know any humans who like hanging out with other humans more than they like eating.
The authors of the study wrote that cats are often seen as not especially sociable or trainable because there is a "lack of knowledge of what stimuli cats prefer, and thus may be most motivated to work for."
In order to test the widespread "cats are antisocial assh*les" belief, researchers subjected them to a series of tests to prove what they would choose in different situations. They took 50 cats from both shelters and people's homes and deprived them of food, human contact, scent and toys for a few hours. They then reintroduced stimuli in these four categories to see which the cats chose.
The cats have spoken: Most of the fur balls preferred human socialization over any of the other category. The authors of the study wrote,
While it has been suggested that cat sociality exists on a continuum, perhaps skewed toward independency, we have found that 50% of cats tested preferred interaction with the social stimulus even though they had a direct choice between social interaction with a human and their other most preferred stimuli from the three other stimulus categories.
There you have it. You can stop buying your cat's love with expensive food or fancy toys because it just wants you for you.
All you dog owners will just have to get over it.
Topics Animals
Samantha was a Watercooler Web Culture & Lifestyle intern at Mashable. Follow her on Twitter @samiscelz.
