If you’ve been saying that your cat has “lots of spunk,” is “retiring,” or “lazy,” give yourself credit — her behavior apparently has a lot to do with your own personality traits. Researchers at Britain’s Nottingham Trent University and the University of Lincoln made the finding when they found a correlation between cat owners’ personalities and their pets’ overall behavior. The information was culled from an online survey of 331 cat owners. The survey factored in each owner’s self-rated personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extroversion, and openness, as well as the owner’s reports about their cat’s breed, health, and behavior, in addition to their management of their pet. Correlations were found between the owner’s personality style and how the pet was raised, which would understandably have some impact on the cat’s own behavior.
