For my research, I focussed on identifying whether cats with certain personality types engage in head rubbing behaviour more frequently than those with other personality types. This is a start to try and understand why cats display this behaviour inside the home.
For example, is this purely friendly behaviour? Or is it more territorial? Or perhaps anxious cats display the behaviour more often because they feel a need to reassure themselves?
The personality types I analysed are based on research by Litchfield et al (2017). I analysed head rubbing behaviour in three categories: people, permanent fixtures in the home and new items in the home.
The initial findings:
- Agreeable cats (relaxed, friendly and affectionate) head rub people significantly more often than other personalities, both people they live with as well as visitors to the home;
- Neurotic cats (shy, insecure and tense) most frequently head rub furniture or other permanent fixtures in the home after a visitor has left;
- Dominant cats (independent, sometimes bullying) engage in head rubbing new items in the home most often.
Similar to findings on cats’ grooming behaviour of other cats (allogrooming) (see Curtis et al (2003) and van den Bos (1998)), there seems to be a duality to head rubbing behaviour. This would require further research and ideally observational studies in order to assess body language during rubbing behaviour in order to establish whether this behaviour can indeed be regarded as friendly as well as neurotic or dominant depending on the circumstances.
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