Cat or Dog? What Your Pet Says About Your Personality

Cat lovers might just start revving up their purring engines, and begin grinning like a Cheshire cat while reading the release of a recent study made by a group of scientists in Great Britain. It just may prove a theory that cat owners are smarter than dog owners. Hey folks, I promise you that I didn't bribe the research scientists to ensure that their result validated what most cat people suspect. They simply set out to prove their hypothesis and accomplished their mission; noting that dog owners are just not quite as intelligent as those of us who are owned by felines. According to a report from the Daily Mail, researchers working on this extensive study, designed to learn which kind of pet the British prefer, discovered that cat owners are, for the most part, more intelligent than folks who love dogs. Results demonstrated that the people in the study who had college degrees, (who may at first glance be generally considered "smarter"), were 36 percent more likely to be owned by a cat, than those who did not obtain a college degree. However, in all fairness to dog lovers, these results could have been based upon the assumption that perhaps college graduates work longer hours. And since cats generally are considered lower maintenance pets than their canine counterparts, this group of "Brits" chose felines as their furry companions. But what about people who choose to share their hearts and homes with both species? That is the $64 million question, as far as I am concerned. Into which category do these folks fall as far as intelligence is concerned? A great answer to this mystery was given by Kathy Steuber, owned by Finley, a chocolate Labradoodle, along with two rescued cats. She thinks that her pets may actually be smarter than she is, and said, "I'm outnumbered by my furry friends, and sometimes they do gang up on me."' In the United States, a recent study examined personality types in relationship to pet preference. In the Gosling-Potter Personality Project held at the University of Texas at Austin, led by psychologist Sam Gosling, a group of researchers asked thousands of volunteer participants whether they preferred cats or dogs. In the same online questionnaire, they were asked to rate their personality traits in five areas: neuroticism, agreeableness, extroversion, openness, and conscientiousness. The study results demonstrated that those who consider themselves "dog people" ranked higher in the area of extroversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness. Feline lovers, however, ranked higher in the areas of openness and neuroticism, which for the purposes of the study translate into "quirkiness, creativity and contemplation." In an interview with CNN, Dr. Gosling remarked, "Agreeableness and extroversion- dogs are companionable, they hang out, they like to be with you, they like your company, whereas cats like it for as long as they want it, and then they're off." However, Dr. Gosling added that some folks might consider a dog's incessant sniffing as a neurotic trait. Additionally, Gosling suggested that the study should be taken with a grain of salt, and told CNN, "it means that if you knew nothing else about them, that would be your best guess." The complete results of the team's findings will be published in the scientific Journal, Anthrozoos. So are cat people really both more intelligent but also more neurotic than dog people? Leave a comment with your opinions. Photo via.