It happens every night. The cat jumps on the sofa, curls up next to you, starts making pasta with its paws on the cushion and, shortly after, that unmistakable purr. He’s five years old, eight, maybe twelve. Yet, it behaves exactly like a kitten of a few weeks old. It’s not nostalgia, it’s not regression. It’s neoteny. And according to Giorgio Celli, one of the most important Italian ethologists who passed away in 2011, it is the key to understanding how cats conquered us without us realizing it.
Neoteny is a fascinating evolutionary phenomenon: some species maintain physical or behavioral characteristics typical of puppies into adulthood. It’s not a flaw, far from it. It is an adaptation that, in certain contexts, offers unexpected advantages. This is seen in some amphibians, such as the axolotl, which retains external gills even as an adult. And you can see it, indeed, in domestic cats.
In the case of the cat, it is not so much a matter of physical changes but rather of behavioral ones. The purr, for example, originates as a communication signal between the puppy and the mother during breastfeeding. In adult wild cats they disappear. In the house cat, however, they remain for life. The same goes for kneading with their paws, that movement that kittens make on their mother’s womb to stimulate the flow of milk. No adult cat in the wild continues to do this. The domestic cat, on the other hand, repeats it every time it feels safe and satisfied. Maybe right about you.
Even the meow tells something similar. Adult wild cats communicate mainly through body language, looks, postures. The meow is a call from the puppies to their mother. Yet, the house cat does meow, and often very insistently, especially when it wants something from us. Food, attention, an open door. He understood that it works. And keep using it.
“We are the simulacrum of the mother-cat”
Celli, ethologist but also writer, playwright and unrepentant lover of cats, dedicated much of his work to these animals. In books like The house cat: ethology of a friendship And The Secret Life of Catshe observed, told, interpreted. And one of his most brilliant intuitions concerns behavioral neoteny.
Celli wondered if for the cat, an animal that knows no hierarchy, we humans could not be the simulacrum of the mother-cat. Not in a literal sense, of course. But functional. We provide food, we guarantee safety, we offer warmth. Just like a mother would. And the cat, intelligent as he is, has understood that keeping certain childish behaviors active guarantees him all this. Forever.
According to comparative ethological studies, the intelligence of the adult cat is comparable to that of a child of around 18 months. It’s not a little. It is the cognitive level at which a child understands that an object exists even when he does not see it, knows how to look for it, remembers where it is. An intelligence that is already sophisticated, but still strongly linked to the need for care. And the cat has made this phase a perfect evolutionary arrival point.
An evolutionary trap into which we willingly fall
The speculative intelligence of the cat has recognized the benefits of neoteny and has made its advantages its own. It is no coincidence that over thousands of years the domestic cat has remained physically small, with proportions reminiscent of those of a human puppy or newborn. Eyes large compared to the face, rounded head, agile but never threatening movements. Everything contributes to triggering in us an instinctive response of protection and care.
Evolutionary psychology has shown that certain physical characteristics – large eyes, a broad forehead, plump cheeks – automatically activate feelings of tenderness in us. It is a mechanism that natural selection has refined to make us take care of our young. But it also works with other species. During domestication, the cat “learned” to exploit this mechanism. And he benefits from it.
It’s not manipulation in the negative sense of the word. It’s coevolution. We needed them to keep the mice out of the barns, they needed us for food and shelter. But while dogs have adapted by learning to obey, cats have chosen a different path: to remain puppies. And it works great.
In the neonatal imprinting of the cat there is an early weaning phase managed by the mother cat who in nature brings the kittens small prey as food. When a two-month-old kitten finds itself in front of a full bowl brought by a human being, it cannot help but associate that gesture with that of a mother. The emotional-food bond is created there, in that moment. And once established, it is difficult to break.
Then comes the purring. Who can resist a tender being capable of making not only his diaphragm vibrate but also the emotional strings of whoever is caressing him? It’s a rhetorical question, of course. The answer is: none. And the cat knows it perfectly.
The archetypal child is the cat that never grows up
Carl Gustav Jung spoke of archetypes, those primordial images present in the collective unconscious of all humanity. Among these is the archetype of the child: the symbol of vulnerability, innocence, pure potential. When we see a puppy, any puppy, an instinctive response of protection and care is activated in us. But the domestic cat has gone a step further: it has understood that if it keeps certain infantile behaviors active, it can continue to activate that response throughout its life.
Purring, for example, is a sound that in nature only belongs to kittens during breastfeeding. In adult wild cats they disappear. In the house cat, however, they become a permanent language. The same goes for kneading with their paws, that rhythmic movement that puppies make on their mother’s womb to stimulate milk. The adult cat continues to do it on you, on the sofa, on the blanket. It’s not a confused memory: it’s a precise strategy. Because he knows it works.
Jung would probably have recognized in this feline behavior a sort of dialogue with our maternal or paternal archetype. The cat is not a child, of course. But it activates the same emotional responses, the same protective instincts, in us. And we respond accordingly, treating him exactly as we would treat a child. We speak to him in a sweet voice, we worry about his health, we prepare food for him, we create safe spaces for him. Because inside us, something recognizes him as a being who needs care.
Freud and the need for mutual care
Sigmund Freud, for his part, would probably have confronted us with an uncomfortable truth: our need to look after a cat as if it were a child says much more about us than about the cat itself. In Freudian theory, the parental instinct is not just a biological impulse aimed at the survival of the species. It is also a way to satisfy deep psychological needs: the need to feel useful, necessary, loved unconditionally.
The cat, with its extraordinary emotional intelligence, has understood how to exploit this mechanism. He doesn’t obey like a dog, he doesn’t submit, he doesn’t recognize hierarchies. Yet he manages to make us feel indispensable. When he purrs while we caress him, when he curls up on our laps, when he wakes us up in the morning meowing for breakfast, he is telling us: “I need you”. And we respond with a wave of emotional gratification that few other relationships can provide.
Freud would probably have talked about sublimation: the transformation of primary impulses into socially acceptable behavior. Our parental instinct, when it does not find an outlet in human children or when it seeks additional channels of expression, flows onto pets. And the cat, with its behavioral neoteny, is the perfect candidate. It’s independent enough to not be overwhelming, but needy enough to make us feel important.
Big eyes and round head: the trap of the “baby scheme”
In 1943, the ethologist Konrad Lorenz identified the so-called “Kindchenschema”, which can be translated as “child schema”: a set of physical characteristics typical of baby mammals that automatically trigger in us a response of tenderness and protection. Large eyes compared to the face, broad forehead, chubby cheeks, awkward movements. All characteristics that human babies possess. And that domestic cats have maintained even as adults.
It’s not a coincidence. Thousands of years of coexistence with man have selected cats that retain “puppy” proportions even into adulthood. An adult domestic cat is physically more similar to a feral kitten than to an adult feral feline. And this activates in us, in a completely automatic way, the same psychological mechanisms that make us look after children.
It’s an evolutionary trap we willingly fall into. Indeed, into which we choose to fall. Because that emotional response, that wave of tenderness, is also pleasant. It makes us feel good. And the cat knows it.
A silent conquest
Giorgio Celli loved to repeat that perhaps the cat is not a domestic animal, but the only animal to have domesticated man. It’s not a paradox. It is a lucid reading of a relationship that, if you look closely, works exactly the opposite of how we think. We believe we have chosen cats. But they chose us, modulating their behavior to make themselves indispensable, affectionate, irresistible.
And they succeeded. Today, cats are among the most popular pets in the world. They don’t work, they don’t obey, they don’t follow us on walks. Yet we love them. We look after them. We pamper them as we do with children. Because, deep down, that’s exactly what they want us to believe they are. Eternal puppies who need us. Even when, in reality, they could do very well on their own.
But who would have the courage to tell that to that purring bundle curled up on the sofa?
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