Are cats social or independent?

Ask, and most people will say that cats are independent animals, especially compared to dogs. This is the kind of thing that people say:

“Cats are generally more independent than dogs.”[1] – The Natural Dog Online

“One of the best things about cats is that they are very independent creatures.”[2] – Freshpet

“But three cats, one cat – it’s pretty much the same because cats are independent.”[3] – The New York Times

In fact, some people will say that the reason to get a cat instead of a dog is because they are so independent. Cats, the theory goes, don’t need your time and attention the way dogs do. They entertain themselves. They can be left alone for hours while you work or play.

But cats are actually surprisingly social creatures, who need us probably much more than we realize.

Let’s dig deeper into the nature of cats.

Cats are social, but they’re also individuals

Before I go any further, it’s important to point out that cats are individuals, just like people. They’re all different.

So, when I say that “cats are social,” I’m not making a blanket, one-size-fits-all statement about every cat who has ever lived.

Like people, cats enjoy a full spectrum of personality types, preferences, and behaviors. Some cats are more introverted and need more “me” time in any given day. Other cats can’t wait for you to take them on a leash-walk so they can catch up with all their friends in the neighborhood.

Some of these differences are probably genetic, while others can be attributed to an individual cat’s life experiences (how many times was she returned to a shelter?), and how well she was socialized in early kittenhood.

Cats are “facultatively social”

But it goes beyond that for cats. Cats are what scientists call “facultatively social.” This is just a fancy of way of saying that cats are very flexible when it comes to sociability.

In the wild, cats may be solitary, or they may live happily as a member of a large colony, or somewhere in between.[4]

Cats tend to coexist peaceably with other cats so long as there are enough resources to go around, like food, shelter, and territory.[5]

When there’s not enough for everybody, cats are able to adjust and go it alone if they have to.

Cats truly are amazing.

Why do we tend to think of cats as independent, or even anti-social?

The problem is us, not cats.

We tend to compare cats to other social species, like dogs (or humans), and cats don’t seem to measure up.

Dogs do have more sophisticated communication skills compared to cats, thanks to their lifestyle. Dogs hunt together, eat together, and sleep together, and thus have evolved to have a very complex social order, requiring advanced communication strategies to keep the peace.

Cats also tend to live in large social groups in the wild. But they do some things alone, like hunting, scavenging, and eating. Consequently, they don’t need the nuanced communication skills that dogs require just to get along.

How a cat’s social group is structured

A cat’s social group is typically comprised of family members. A large cat colony will include multiple generations of related mother cats and their kittens, and even their grown-up kittens (although male kittens may leave the group once they are adults).

If a cat encounters another cat who doesn’t belong to his family, then both cats will usually keep the peace by keeping their distance. They will use body language to communicate, which can be seen and interpreted from afar, preventing the fight that might occur if they got up close and personal.

Cats will also communicate using scent, such as urine marking, or by leaving a visible sign, like scratch marks, to indicate territory. Scent and scratch marks work because they linger, keeping the “conversation” with other cats going, long after their maker has left the area.

How are cats social with other cats?

Cats can be social with other cats, but they are not equally social with all other cats.

Cats have been shown to have what scientists call “preferred associates.” I would call them best friends. They engage in all kinds of particular behaviors with their special friends, like grooming, allorubbing, touching each other while sleeping, booping noses, and greeting one another with their tails up when they approach.[6]

In general, house cats get along best with other cats who are related to them, just like they would if they were living in a feral colony instead of your living room. The second-best recipe for getting along between cats is simply knowing each other. 

Cats who have lived together, even if they are not from the same family, will tend to be less aggressive toward each other than cats who are unrelated and also unfamiliar with each other.

How are cats social with people?

Unfortunately, we don’t tend to think of cats as being as emotionally involved with us as dogs are.

A 2017 study conducted in Japan found that while people view both cats and dogs as family members, cats are assumed to be less capable of feeling emotion than dogs. Cats were considered to be less trainable than dogs. They were rated as lower in intelligence and in their ability to read their human’s emotions than dogs.

Even cat guardians in the study were less likely to believe that cats experienced important emotions like sadness, friendship, sympathy, compassion, or pity, compared to dogs, but were more likely to feel emotions like jealousy and hatred.[7]

Yikes.

But science says those survey respondents were wrong. Cats have the ability to form strong bonds with humans.

Cats are actually as attached to us as dogs and babies

There’s a test that’s typically used on humans and other primates to test their attachment to their caregivers, called the Secure Base Test (SBT). This test has been given to dogs, too.

During the SBT, a cat will be observed spending two minutes in an unfamiliar room with her guardian, then two minutes in the room all alone, and then two final minutes enjoying a reunion with her guardian.

Cats are evaluated based on their behaviors during these sessions. Results of the SBT study with cats showed that cats have a similar capacity for secure attachment to their guardians as human children do to their parents, and dogs to their guardians.[8]

Cats have great social sensitivity

Cats are also capable of great social sensitivity, which means that they are good at understanding social cues.

For example, cats show a preference for approaching humans who are paying attention to them. One study showed that both shelter and pet cats spent less than 20% of a two-minute test period attempting to interact with a person who was ignoring them, versus 60% of the period trying to get closer to someone who was calling their name, or paying attention to them.[9]

Cats are also capable of following a pointing human finger or gaze to a spot with hidden food.[10] We used to believe that this was something only dogs were capable of doing. Even chimpanzees don’t understand what a pointing finger means[11], and it takes a lot of training to get a wolf to respond to pointing.[12] But cats are capable of this incredibly social behavior, in which two living things share attention to the same object.

Cats prefer us over food, toys, and scent

Another study involving both pet and shelter cats showed that cats, when given the choice, will choose socializing with people over food, toys, and scent.[13]

Food came second. Shocking, I know.

Why does it matter that we know that cats are social?

Wrong assumptions about the nature of cats makes us less able to care for them in the way they deserve.

If we underestimate how much cats need our time and attention, we might fail to miss the signs that they are unhappy.

We may misinterpret behaviors stemming from a cat's loneliness as "behavior problems." Or, we might witness behaviors resulting from fear and anxiety and think, "oh, that's just cats being cats."

Similarly, if we don't understand how cats socialize (or not) with other cats, we can inadvertently create a household environment that can lead to chronic stress for a cat, and ultimately poor health.

We have a long way to go to understand cats. The science on cat behavior is far behind the science on dog behavior. But the most important thing is to be open to new information as the base of knowledge grows, and to use the research to improve how we treat and care for the cats in our own lives.

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Dawn LaFontaine

Dawn LaFontaine is a lifelong animal lover who always seems to have a little pet hair in her keyboard. Her blog, Kitty Contemplations, helps cat guardians better understand and care for the special beings they share their lives and homes with. Her cat-products business, Cat in the Box, sells beautiful, well-made, and award-winning products that she designed to meet the biological needs of cats.