Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

New Research Reveals The Personality Trait That Predicts Whether You Will Seek Out A Cat When Stressed

A study published in the journal Anthrozoös, conducted by researchers at Washington State University and KU Leuven in Belgium, has identified the personality trait most likely to predict whether someone will seek out a cat for stress relief rather than a dog, and the answer has a name: emotionality. Researchers surveyed more than 1,400 university students and staff across more than 20 institutions, and found that people who score high in emotionality, a well-established dimension of the Big Five personality model that measures how intensely a person experiences their emotions and how readily they react to them, were significantly more interested in interacting with cats during campus stress relief programs than those who scored lower. The finding held up even after accounting for whether someone was already a cat owner, whether they identified as female, and whether they were also interested in dog-based programs. Co-author Professor Patricia Pendry of Washington State University said that emotionality is a stable and consistent feature of personality, and that people at the higher end of that scale were far more drawn to cats on campus than anyone had previously documented.

The study emerged partly because more than 85 percent of university animal-assisted intervention programs, including popular events like stress-relief therapy dog days, include only dogs, leaving a significant portion of the student population underserved by a format that was never really designed for them. Separate research from the Cornell Feline Health Center has found that petting a cat lowers cortisol levels and can reduce heart rate, with some studies showing the calming effect arrives more quickly than it does with dogs for people who already prefer cats. The researchers also found that university staff, who are commonly excluded from these programs despite facing comparable stress levels, expressed strong interest in participating if cats were included. Pendry said the practical implication is clear: adding cats to campus stress programs is not just feasible, it may be exactly what the students who need it most are already asking for.

Source: https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/05/cats-stress-relief-emotional-people-study/

PrevPreviousScientists Just Proved That Your Brain Can Dream While You Are Wide Awake

Recent Articles

Happy News

Scientists Gave Monkeys A Reward-Free Video Game And They Played Nearly 100 Rounds Anyway

May 10, 2026

Researchers at Kyoto University’s Institute for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior set out to test whether curiosity in Japanese macaques follows the same pattern observed in humans, and what they found should resonate with anyone who has ever gone down a late-night internet rabbit hole for no practical reason

Read More
Happy News

Scientists May Have Finally “Seen” Dark Matter

May 9, 2026

For nearly a century, dark matter has been one of the greatest mysteries in all of science. We know it exists as it makes up an estimated 85% of the universe’s total mass and acts as invisible gravitational scaffolding holding galaxies together, but no one has ever directly observed it.

Read More
Happy News

Coral Reefs Are Hiding An Almost Entirely Unstudied Universe Of Potential Medicine

May 9, 2026

Scientists at the University of Galway and an international consortium have discovered that coral reefs contain an almost entirely unstudied universe of microbial life, publishing a study in Nature that reconstructed the genomes of 645 microbial species from 99 coral reefs across 32 Pacific islands, with more than 99 percent

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.