A new scientific study has found that pet cats tend to meow more often\u2014and more loudly\u2014when greeting men than women. But this doesn\u2019t mean they prefer male family members. Instead, researchers say it\u2019s likely because men talk less to cats, so the cats have to \u201cspeak up\u201d to get their attention.<\/p>\n
The study, led by Yasemin Salgirli Demirbas from Ankara University in Turkey, looked at how 31 cats behaved when their owners came home. Each cat wore a small camera so scientists could see exactly how they acted during those first moments of reunion.<\/p>\n
On average, cats gave 4.3 meows when greeting male owners, compared to just 1.8 meows for female owners. The cats also purred and chirped more often when men walked in the door.<\/p>\n
Researchers believe this is because women are usually more chatty and attentive with their pets, so cats don\u2019t need to try as hard to be noticed. With men, the cats might feel they need to \u201ctalk\u201d more to get the attention they want.<\/p>\n
The cats also showed signs of both affection and relief, showing they were happy and comforted by their humans\u2019 return\u2014no matter their gender.<\/p>\n
Although this study only involved a small number of cats in Turkey, scientists hope to do more research in other countries to see if cats behave the same way around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new scientific study has found that pet cats tend to meow more often\u2014and more loudly\u2014when greeting men than women. But this doesn\u2019t mean they prefer male family members. Instead, researchers say it\u2019s likely because men talk less to cats, so the cats have to \u201cspeak up\u201d to get their attention. The study, led by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[63,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animals","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n