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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →No reliable evidence establishes that cat owners are smarter than dog owners overall. A few studies found differences among people who identified as “cat people” or “dog people,” including one undergraduate study in which the cat-person group scored higher on a brief general-intelligence measure. Those findings describe selected samples, not all pet owners, and they do not show that choosing a cat causes higher intelligence.
What studies have found about cat people and dog people
The available comparisons concern self-identified pet preferences, not verified ownership across a representative population. Their results are best read as associations within particular samples.
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| Study | Participants and groups | What it reported | What the result can tell us |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carroll University study, reported by the Association for Psychological Science in 2014 | 600 college students, according to the report | The report said cat lovers scored higher on intelligence overall. | A finding from college students; it is not a population-wide IQ comparison and does not establish cause and effect. |
| Guastello, Guastello and Guastello, 2017 | 418 undergraduates: 352 self-identified dog people and 66 self-identified cat people | Cat people scored higher on the questionnaire’s general-intelligence measure, abstractedness and self-reliance. Dog people scored higher on warmth, liveliness, rule consciousness and social boldness. | A comparison within an undergraduate sample using self-identification; it does not establish that pet preference causes any score difference. |
| Gosling, Sandy and Potter, 2010 | 4,565 people who identified as dog people, cat people, both, or neither | The study examined differences across Big Five personality traits. | It offers context on personality and pet preference, not evidence that one group has higher intelligence. |
The 2017 paper, “Personality Differences between Dog People and Cat People,” used the Sixteen Personality Factors Questionnaire and a pet survey. Its general-intelligence result was one measure within a broader questionnaire—not proof of a general IQ gap. The groups were also uneven in size, and the participants were undergraduates.
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No. The 2017 comparison was observational: it compared scores and self-reported preference rather than assigning people a pet or testing whether a preference changed intelligence. It therefore cannot show that liking cats makes a person smarter. Nor does it establish that the cat-person group would score higher in a representative sample of owners.
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“Cat person” and “dog person” are preference labels. They should not automatically be treated as evidence that someone owns that animal. A separate questionnaire study about owners’ views of their pets’ emotions and intellect measured what owners thought about their animals, not the owners’ own intelligence.
How to interpret the personality findings
Some studies report personality differences between people who identify with cats or dogs. In the 2017 undergraduate study, dog people scored higher on warmth, liveliness, rule consciousness and social boldness, while cat people scored higher on abstractedness and self-reliance as well as the study’s general-intelligence measure. These are group-level questionnaire results, not dependable descriptions of any individual.
The 2010 study also examined personality across people identifying as dog people, cat people, both or neither. Personality findings should not be recast as intelligence findings: the traits and the questions being measured are different.
Are cats smarter than dogs?
That is a question about animal cognition, not the intelligence of their human companions. There is no single score that captures every kind of animal intelligence. Researchers study particular abilities—such as problem-solving, concept formation, social cognition and inhibitory control—and a species may perform differently depending on the task.
In a 2021 Live Science article, dog-cognition researcher Alexandra Horowitz explained that researchers look at “different aspects of cognition,” rather than intelligence as one universal quality. She also noted that cats and dogs are adept at things relevant to their respective lives. Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, similarly cautioned that ranking a dog against a cat depends on what ability is being considered. These are explanations of how to think about cognition, not quantitative proof that one species is smarter.
Comparisons also need to account for differences in socialization and training opportunities. The Live Science coverage notes that one cross-species study of inhibitory control did not include cats, so it cannot establish a cat-versus-dog result. A finding about animal cognition cannot answer whether cat-preferring people or dog-preferring people have higher intelligence.
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