4 ms·

There's countless "jealous cat" videos that suggest otherwise. This raises the question: Do cats learn jealousy from humans?

MrMcCall 2y ago
I doubt it; it would probably just be a natural competitive advantage to be against others having more or getting treated better, which is a kind of more. Grooming in mammals is a survival benefit, after all. And I think that what we consider animals "learning from humans" is mostly them just learning how to get the most out of their magical food/shelter source. I mean, when a cat rubs its head on a person, it's just sharing its scent with the pack. And when a dog licks your face, it's just finding out what you ate, hoping that you'd share, you unsharing alpha bastard with the pizza and chicken. And that leads to the real difference between cats and dogs. Dogs have gained their survival advantage because they make you believe you're the alpha, cat's don't give a crap, because they know they're the alpha. And if you think you're the alpha in the dog relationship, just stop feeding them for a few days; you'll quickly find out who is who, my friend :-)
amaurose 2y ago
I have the theory that domesticated animals learn a lot of what we perceive as their traits from their owners. For instance, my cat never really cared much about new years eve fireworks. I attribute that to me not being anxious around that time of the year. However, all the pet owners I ever talked to who told me their pet is particularily anxious around new years eve turned out to also not really like fireworks... And I can very well imagine how the pet picks up the vibe of their owner, why shouldn't they... My cat also freely shared his food bowl and litterbox with visiting cats, which was really adorable behaviour. I attribute that to a rather deep mutual trust betweenhim and me, but thats fishing in the dark...
- pezezin 2y ago
  My cat doesn't care about fireworks either. At worst, he will get mad and wants to go out to murder the asshole who disturbed his sleep xD
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  Maybe he's just looking for a few good cats to help take you down ;-)
nonameiguess 2y ago
It's honestly worth asking even about humans. By the time an infant is old enough to display meaningful personality traits, they've been around other humans learning as much as the cats. An infant can't survive in complete isolation, so we have no way of testing how much behavior is truly pure instinct and how much is learned. It's unethical to do this experimentally, so all we have is a sparse collection of historical feral children, but even these were always raised by humans at least through infancy. This paper's intro notes that inequity aversion shows in humans as early as age 4. That is more than enough time for it to be entirely learned.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  Our bodies have intrinsically mammalian tendencies, such as our competitive nature, especially over food. At some point in our development, we gain the ability to learn sharing and impulse control and other such higher brain functions. This is why childhood education is so important, and was such an important part of mid-to-late 1930s German youth education. We are all brainwashed by our upbringing, in whichever directions our mentors exemplify or force upon us, such is the nature of our adaptive wetware. At some point, we can always exercise our ability to choose, however difficult it may be, and for better or worse, for both ourselves and our cultures.

MrMcCall 2y ago

I doubt it; it would probably just be a natural competitive advantage to be against others having more or getting treated better, which is a kind of more. Grooming in mammals is a survival benefit, after all. And I think that what we consider animals "learning from humans" is mostly them just learning how to get the most out of their magical food/shelter source. I mean, when a cat rubs its head on a person, it's just sharing its scent with the pack. And when a dog licks your face, it's just finding out what you ate, hoping that you'd share, you unsharing alpha bastard with the pizza and chicken. And that leads to the real difference between cats and dogs. Dogs have gained their survival advantage because they make you believe you're the alpha, cat's don't give a crap, because they know they're the alpha. And if you think you're the alpha in the dog relationship, just stop feeding them for a few days; you'll quickly find out who is who, my friend :-)

amaurose 2y ago

I have the theory that domesticated animals learn a lot of what we perceive as their traits from their owners. For instance, my cat never really cared much about new years eve fireworks. I attribute that to me not being anxious around that time of the year. However, all the pet owners I ever talked to who told me their pet is particularily anxious around new years eve turned out to also not really like fireworks... And I can very well imagine how the pet picks up the vibe of their owner, why shouldn't they... My cat also freely shared his food bowl and litterbox with visiting cats, which was really adorable behaviour. I attribute that to a rather deep mutual trust betweenhim and me, but thats fishing in the dark...

pezezin 2y ago
My cat doesn't care about fireworks either. At worst, he will get mad and wants to go out to murder the asshole who disturbed his sleep xD
MrMcCall 2y ago
Maybe he's just looking for a few good cats to help take you down ;-)

nonameiguess 2y ago

It's honestly worth asking even about humans. By the time an infant is old enough to display meaningful personality traits, they've been around other humans learning as much as the cats. An infant can't survive in complete isolation, so we have no way of testing how much behavior is truly pure instinct and how much is learned. It's unethical to do this experimentally, so all we have is a sparse collection of historical feral children, but even these were always raised by humans at least through infancy. This paper's intro notes that inequity aversion shows in humans as early as age 4. That is more than enough time for it to be entirely learned.

MrMcCall 2y ago
Our bodies have intrinsically mammalian tendencies, such as our competitive nature, especially over food. At some point in our development, we gain the ability to learn sharing and impulse control and other such higher brain functions. This is why childhood education is so important, and was such an important part of mid-to-late 1930s German youth education. We are all brainwashed by our upbringing, in whichever directions our mentors exemplify or force upon us, such is the nature of our adaptive wetware. At some point, we can always exercise our ability to choose, however difficult it may be, and for better or worse, for both ourselves and our cultures.