The Psychological influence cats have on their owners.

Since I can remember, my family has always had a cat in the house. Last year, we adopted a black cat named Onyx, two years after our previous cat passed away. Since we got him, I have noticed a difference in my psychological well-being, social life, and physical health. Through this, I recognized an improvement in daily routines as well as emotional resilience. After conversations with my family, we all had the same thought: is our cat influencing us?

Psychological Influence

As any pet owner has probably experienced, their furry friends have a talent in knowing when their owner is stressed, anxious or depressed, and may try to interact with them to make them feel better. Interactions with cats are proposed to influence human health, including mental health. The question is, how does this happen?

Emotional Influence

A study conducted by Rieger and Turner (1999) has discovered that a cat’s presence as well as interactions with it have a high effect of reducing negative mood in the person. A depressed person will approach the cat less regularly, but when the cat is the one to approach, the person will accept the interaction, thus influencing mood. This depressed mood is also caught on by the cat, who will then change its behaviour by vocalizing and head-rubbing more frequently on the person. Women are also more affected by this behaviour in cats and vice-versa (Turner, 2021).

Physiological influence affecting psychological health

In a study conducted by Nagasawa et al. (2023) between owners and their cats, it was found that contrary to the belief that cats cause calming effects, there was actually an increase in heart rate and signs of activation of the sympathetic nervous system, indicating arousal.

This suggested that cats may cause eustress or positive stress in humans, rather than the previous belief of calmness. Oxytocin levels also increased after interactions with the owner’s cats, which is an indicator of the positive bond between cat and owner. Cortisol, the stress hormone, was positively correlated with both oxytocin and heart rate, thus indicating a complex hormonal response in the owner’s hormonal activity after interaction. Considering the number of times my cat has caused me stress due to eating something he was not supposed to, this result is not surprising to me.

Despite physiological arousal shown by heart rate signs and hormonal levels, many owners reported a decrease in their emotional arousal. This could explain why many people report that interacting with their cat after crying helps them feel better. Playing with cats was shown to increase parasympathetic activity, while petting was linked with increased sympathetic activity. These results provide an interesting perspective. On the surface, it seems that these results are not beneficial to humans. However, your cat may actually offer you health benefits by slightly stressing you out, since the stimulation of moderate physiological arousal and oxytocin is likely to help you more than it hurts you.

Conclusion

The influence of cats is interwoven between numerous aspects. Through personal opinions and research, it is easy for me to understand that my cat has a big influence on me after all. It is not just a companion, but a silent participant in the complex world of human psychology.