New Study Finds That Men Who Pose With Cats Are Less Likely To Get a Date

Cat-astrophic News for all the loving cat's men out there: if you want to attract women, you should really consider taking your cat off your profile photo.

A new study by the Colorado State University showed hundreds of women photos of two men, both pictured with and without a furry companion, and their responses clearly confirmed that women are less likely to swipe right — or say yes — to men if they're posing with a cat in a picture.

A total of 708 women aged between 18 and 24 were surveyed in the online experiment and here are some of its main results.

1
"Men holding cats were viewed as less masculine, more neurotic, agreeable, and open and less dateable", wrote the authors.

When shown the cat-free picture of one of the subjects, 38% of women said they were likely or very likely to casually date him, while 37% said they'd consider a serious relationship with him. But a picture of the same man holding a cat gave the respondents paws for thought — and those numbers dropped to 33% for each category.

Via mdpi.
Advertisement
2
After a picture was displayed, the female participants were asked to rate the man on 11 different personality attributes as well as on 12 masculine traits:

Some of the traits on the list were how generally trusting he is, what are his artistic interests, his sociability level, leadership abilities, decision-making skills, dominance, kindness, sensitivity and more.

Via mdpi.
3
"The findings are likely the result of long-held cultural stereotypes about cat and dog owners," the authors said.

"It is important to note that these findings were influenced by whether the female viewer self-identified as a 'dog' or 'cat' person, suggesting that American culture has distinguished 'cat men' as less masculine, perhaps creating a cultural preference for 'dog men' among most heterosexual women in the studied age group," they wrote.

Via mdpi.