Do cat feel guilty after accidentally hurting you?

No, cats don’t understand the emotion of “guilt”, but they do want to comfort you.

Cats don’t understand the emotion of “guilt”

To have the emotion of “guilt”, there are two steps: the first step is to realize that you have done something wrong; the second step is to condemn yourself (feel guilty) for doing something wrong.

But cats (and dogs) don’t quite understand these two steps.

Cats (and dogs) cannot realize that they have done something wrong because they do not have the same right and wrong as us.

Through research on cats and dogs, it is found that they do not have such a complex judgment and cognitive system. For example, scratching: “scratching on cardboard is right, scratching on the sofa is wrong”, for cats who have no concept of money and knowledge of furniture classification, they cannot understand…

After doing something wrong (as people think), cats are cautious, not because of guilt.

In 2009, Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist at Columbia University, found in her research that when the owner has clear emotional fluctuations and guides the pet to know that “they may be punished”, their body language reflects more “fear” rather than guilt.

Typical actions include: avoiding eye contact; (dogs) tuck their tails between their legs; hiding behind objects.

Although cats don’t understand why they upset you, they want to comfort you. Although cats don’t know what they did wrong, and don’t know the “humanity” that they need to make amends for their mistakes, many cats will still comfort you after they upset you. This is because cats can recognize your different emotions. In 2015, a study by the University of Auckland published in Animal Cognition confirmed that cats can recognize different emotions of people through their voice, tone, posture, and even through photos of their facial expressions.

Cats will feel uneasy about your negative emotions, so they want to “interrupt your sadness and sorrow.”

They will use some of their own behaviors to try to attract your attention, so that you stop emitting pheromones of anxiety, sadness, and anger, so that they can feel better (you can also understand it as making yourself feel better).

Cats do these to comfort you

Cats have different ways of comforting people. Their original intention is to quickly attract your attention, reconnect with you, and pull you out of your current thoughts.

Some gentle and graceful cats will:

· Purr (also a common way for cats to comfort themselves)
· Lick you (in an attempt to relieve your pain, some cats will lick you while biting you
· Rub against you, butt you with their heads, and rub against you
· Blink slowly
· Meow
· Flip their belly

Some bold and pragmatic cats may:

· Push the cup off the table
· Scratch the sofa vigorously
…

This happens because the cat recalls its previous behavior and finds that this can attract your attention more quickly and effectively.

Although this may seem like “adding fuel to the fire and deliberately making me angry” in the eyes of the cat owner, from the cat’s perspective, it is actually a way of “surrendering” to express “Don’t be angry, look at me, and talk to me.”