Posted on 02/23/2019 11:53:59 AM PST by ETL
Evans, a psychology graduate student at the University of Liverpool, recently devised a survey for owners who think that their cats are psychopaths.
The survey asks owners to describe the allegedly psychopathic behaviors, and so far they have included bullying other pets, taking over the dog’s bed, and waiting on the kitchen counter to pounce on unsuspecting family members. In short, pretty typical cat behavior.
These answers get at the tricky semantics of calling a cat a “psychopath” when it is just … a cat.
There’s always an implicit comparison when we talk about cats as aloof little jerks, says Mikel Maria Delgado, a postdoctoral researcher on cat behavior at the University of California at Davis.
And that comparison is with dogs, which humans have spent thousands more years domesticating and molding in our image.
Cats, she pointed out, simply don’t have the facial muscles to make the variety of expressions a dog (or human) can.
So when we look at a cat staring at us impassively, it looks like a psychopath who cannot feel or show emotion.
But that’s just its face. Cats communicate not with facial expressions but through the positions of their ears and tails.
Their emotional lives can seem inscrutable—and even nonexistent—until you spend a lot of time getting to know one.
Dogs, on the other hand, have learned to mimic humans.
They do that thing where they pull their mouths back into something resembling a smile.
They hang their heads in a way that looks super guilty.
Just as humans have shaped the physical appearance of dogs, we’ve bred them to be extremely attuned to human social cues.
Dogs that repeatedly raise their brows to make cute puppy faces are more likely to be adopted out of shelters.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
:)
Well, somebody gotta ping Doogle
There are only two species on earth that hunt not just for food but for sport and pleasure, they are humans and house cats.
Dogs have been known to eat their own puppies, cats do not do that and even treat other cats kittens with patience. Cats are NOT psychopaths, dogs just get better press.
“cats do not do that”
Male lions will eat their cubs.
There are only two species on earth that hunt not just for food but for sport and pleasure, they are humans and house cats.
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There are more animals than that who hunt for sport and pleasure. Wolves do it.
Cats may not eat their offspring, but they will leave them to die in someone’s garage, or crawlspace, shed, etc.
(FWIW, we have dogs and a cat, all of whom I love. Most dogs are affectionate; only sometimes, are you lucky enough to get an affectionate cat, and once you have the cat, it’s not as if you can dump it if it isn’t affectionate.)
So will male bears.
Democrats and Marxists do. But, I repeat myself. Even John (Served in Vietnam)Kerry want to know if he could ,"Get me a huntin' license." Have they no shame? AOC must be tearing up already.
I remember long ago our male cat had to be kept away from our female cat and her kittens - he’d bit the male kittens heads off.
BKMK!!
Cats aren’t really all that complicated. Anything significantly smaller than them is food, anything that is significantly larger than them is something that can bring them food, anything roughly their size is confusing and could be either. And they sleep ... a lot.
Actually, the new leader of the pride will kill the offering of his predecessor so all the female go into heat and the new leader can then mate with them.
Kitties are special precious. They just aren’t pippels. That’s all.
Generally if a cat doesn’t return to her kittens it is because she cannot because she has been run over or something like that.
I like dogs, I have one, and aside from having a perverse fondness for rolling in any poison ivy or cat pee that she can find, she’s a good natured little beast despite a profound hatred of her nemesis the mailman.
My tomcat is a bit of a furry little b*****d, and in fact answers to “hey you, furry little b*****d!” The other cat is hopelessly affectionate, sweet-natured, and relentlessly bullied by the tom. I wouldn’t count either as a psychopath, but the tom is definitely a cat of strongly held opinions.
“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
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