Stability of Owners' Perceptions of the Behavioral Style of Their Cats

In humans, personality is relatively stable across the adult life- span and various situations. Can the same be said of the personality of cats? Primary caregivers of cats thought about their cats in four situations: 1) home alone with the cat, 2) an unknown plumber arrives, 3) during a thunderstorm, and 4) when they had had the cat for six months. In each imagined situation, the 65 female and 28 male caregivers (mean age 38.2 years) rated one of their cats (48 female, 44 male, one unknown, mean age 8.0 years) on 29 adjectives that were collapsed into six dimensions of the behavioral style of the cat: amiability, demandingness, dominance, gullibility, nervousness, and play- fulness. Results indicate that owners' perceptions of the behavioral style of their cat (except gullibility) were not stable across situations. When home alone with the owner, cats were perceived as more amiable (M = 3.82), demanding (M = 3.33), dominant (M = 3.10), and playful (M = 3.55) and less nervous (M = 2.39) than with a plumber (M-amiable = 2.92, M-demandingness = 2.36, M-dominance = 2.71, M-playfulness = 2.77, and M-nervous = 3.60) or during a thunder-storm (M-amiable = 2.98, M-demandingness = 2.72, M-dominance = 2.56, M-playfulness = 2.43, and M-nervous = 3.47). These differences are not explained by an overall increase or decrease in cat behavior. The lack of situational stability in per- ceived behavioral styles may limit the applicability of some theories of human personality to cats. Researchers who rely on owners' ratings of the personal- ity or behavior style of cats should specify the situation during which the owner should rate their cat.