Breed is a guide, but it does not predict your cat's personality
Siamese are chatty, Persians are calm, Bengals never stop. There is some truth in it: in cats, breed shapes behavioural tendencies more than it does in dogs. But predicting the personality of a particular cat from its breed is still very risky. This is what we know.
The largest study so far
In 2019, a team at the University of Helsinki led by Hannes Lohi published the largest study of behaviour and breed in cats in the journal Scientific Reports. They analysed questionnaires covering almost 5,800 cats, most of them in Finland, and compared the behaviour of nineteen breeds and breed groups across ten traits: activity, shyness towards strangers and towards new objects, aggression towards the family, towards strangers and towards other cats, seeking contact with people, and repetitive behaviours such as wool sucking or excessive grooming. They took into account factors such as age, sex, age at weaning and access to the outdoors.
What they found: there are differences
Unlike dogs, where large studies have found that breed explains little of an individual's behaviour, in the cats in this study breed was associated with all ten traits. The biggest differences were in activity: the Cornish Rex, Korat and Bengal were the most active, and the British Shorthair, Ragdoll and Birman the least. The Russian Blue was the shyest with strangers and the Burmese the least shy. The Turkish Van and Turkish Angora were the most aggressive, and the British Shorthair, Persian and Cornish Rex the least aggressive towards strangers. Oriental breeds stood out for excessive grooming.
Why this is not an instruction manual
These are differences between group averages, not predictions for each cat. A breed being more active on average does not mean all its cats are, or that a cat of another breed cannot be just as active. The authors themselves point out that there is considerable genetic variation within each breed. The study was also based on what owners reported, mostly in a single country, and some breeds had few cats. And part of the differences may not be genetic at all: breeders of pedigree cats tend to socialise their kittens a lot, which could play a part. It helps you understand tendencies, not guarantee a personality.
Genes count, but not only breed genes
The same group estimated the heritability of several traits in three breeds, the Maine Coon, Ragdoll and Turkish Van, and found moderate values of around 0.4 to 0.5: a meaningful share of the differences between cats comes down to genes, and the rest to environment and experience. This fits with what was already known: kittens of parents who are friendly with people tend to be friendlier, whatever their breed, and the ordinary moggy, which has no breed, has very varied genes and personalities of every kind. Heredity matters, but it is the heredity of its actual parents, not the breed label.
Socialisation: the first weeks change everything
What weighs most in whether a cat will be trusting or fearful with people is what it experiences between two and seven weeks of age, the sensitive period for socialisation. A kitten that is handled gently by several people during that time, hears household noises and meets new things tends to become a far more confident and sociable adult than one that grows up without human contact, pedigree or not. A Finnish study by the same group also linked weaning before eight weeks with more aggression and more repetitive behaviours in adulthood. Breed cannot make up for poor socialisation, and good socialisation works wonders with any cat.
What breed does predict well
To be fair to breed, it predicts appearance very well: size, the type and amount of coat, grooming needs, colour and face shape. It predicts some health risks linked to selective breeding, such as the problems of very flat faces in Persians and Exotics, the joint disease of the Scottish Fold or the predisposition to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in some breeds. And, as we have seen, it points to tendencies in activity and sociability that are worth bearing in mind: if you live in a small flat and want a calm cat, choosing a Bengal is going against the odds. That is what breed profiles are useful for.
What this means when choosing a cat
Breed helps you narrow things down: size, coat, average energy, health. But to know what a particular cat is like, what works is getting to know it. And here the adult cat has a big advantage, pedigree or not: its personality is already formed, and the rescue or foster home can tell you whether it is cuddly, active or shy, and whether it gets on with other cats or with children. If you are buying a pedigree kitten, the best clue to its personality is not the breed but its parents, above all what the mother is like, and how the litter has been raised: whether the kittens live in the house, let themselves be picked up and come over to people out of curiosity.
Why we love stereotypes so much
Stereotypes about cat breeds keep being repeated because, as we have just seen, there is some truth in them, and because we like simple rules. Also because we remember the cases that confirm the stereotype and forget the ones that do not: the Siamese that never shuts up gets talked about, the quiet Siamese does not. And sometimes the stereotype comes true simply because we expect it to: if you believe your cat will be standoffish, you may treat it more distantly and it may end up that way. The sensible thing is to use breed as one more clue, not as a verdict, for better or worse.
In short
In cats, breed is associated with real differences in behaviour, especially in activity, shyness and aggression, and more clearly than in dogs. But these are group tendencies, with lots of variation within each breed, and much of a cat's personality depends on its actual parents, on socialisation between two and seven weeks, on its age at weaning and on the life it leads. Use breed to narrow things down and get to know the cat to decide. And if the cat is an ordinary moggy from a rescue, which is the most common case in Spain, the best information comes from the person looking after it.
In cats, breed points to real tendencies in activity and sociability, more than in dogs, but these are group averages with lots of variation within each breed. Your cat's personality depends a great deal on its parents and on its socialisation between two and seven weeks. Use breed to narrow things down and get to know the cat to decide.
Educational content from Michipedia, translated from the Spanish original. It does not replace the advice of a vet or a feline behaviour specialist. Every cat is an individual.