Definitive Experimental Proof That Cats Really Are Selfish

You might think this is a classic case of science telling us something we already know. But a new experimental paradigm shows that cats behave very differently from dogs and toddlers when it comes to helping people. Cats, in case you had any doubts, are more selfish.

The experimental paradigm is a derivative of a setup ethologists have been using for decades with primates. The experimenter has some kind of a problem, say, she is really hungry. And the solution—a piece of fruit—is just behind her, so she can't see it, but the chimpanzee can. The chimpanzee, in this situation, either goes off and hands the experimenter the fruit or at least signals its presence to her. Dogs and toddlers do the same.

But not cats. In a recent study, published in the journal Animal Behavior, the setup was very similar. The experimenter interacted with an object—a sponge—but then turned away from it and was demonstratively looking for it. The question was how (untrained) dogs, toddlers (between 16 and 24 months), and cats reacted to this situation. The majority of dogs and toddlers helped, either by actually fetching the sponge or by indicating its presence to the experimenters.

What did cats do? Some of them—in fact, very few of them—glimpsed very briefly at the sponge, but that is all. But most of them did absolutely nothing. No helping behavior here.

What explains this difference? Did the cats just not notice what was going on—that someone was in need? Or did they notice, but just didn't care? Or were they trying to indicate with their hardly noticeable eye movements where the experimenter should search for the sponge, but we humans, were too dumb to spot this sign? The authors of the study did some follow-up experiments to help us decide between these options.

You may have wondered why the experimental setup used a sponge as the target object. The reason is that a sponge holds absolutely no interest for either the toddlers or the animals. But when the very same experimental protocol was run not with a sponge, but with a food item that was attractive to the cats, they suddenly showed very similar response behavior to what the dogs and the toddlers were doing.

It is hard to resist the conclusion that cats really only do what they directly benefit from. They don't do anything for others; only for themselves. If you are a cat owner, this might not come as a shock, but it is always nice to see our suspicions confirmed by such elegant experiments.