It is easy to think that your cat doesn’t really give a damn about you. As long as they get their food, you might assume, you are of secondary importance at best. And your happiness or stress is not something cats have the remotest interest in.

As it turns out, all of this is false. As a new study shows, there is a close chemical link between the mood, stress level and various hormonal markers of cat owners and their pets. Cats may try hard to appear nonchalant, but they are extremely well attuned to the mood and happiness of their owners. And vice versa: The emotional and hormonal state of owners is influenced, often without noticing, by the emotional and hormonal state of their cats.

The study was conducted on 19 cat owners and their 29 cats and lasted for a full month. The oxytocin and cortisol content of the cats’ and the owners’ urine was monitored, as well as the self-report of the owners about their mood. And the major finding is that there is a positive correlation between the oxytocin content of the cats’ and their owners’ urine.

Oxytocin is often (somewhat misleadingly) labelled as the ‘love hormone’ as its presence is indicative of wellbeing, happiness, and social bond. Cortisol, by contrast, is indicative of stress. The key result is that the oxytocin content of the cats’ and the owners’ urine fluctuated together—and this effect was stronger if the physical proximity between the cat and the owner was closer. And the cats’ hormonal levels also correlated with the self-report of the owners: When the cats had high oxytocin and low cortisol, the owners tended to describe themselves as happy and relaxed, whereas when the cats had low oxytocin and high cortisol, the owners were more likely to experience stress or gloominess.

One major question about this study—one that the authors did not aim to address—is about who influences whom. Is it that the cat’s happiness makes us happy? Or is it the other way round, and the cat feels whether we are stressed? Or maybe both? These questions will, no doubt, be addressed in future research.

But the lesson is clear: Cats are not as antisocial as they seem. We have more and more findings about just how attuned cats can be to the various psychological states of their owners. They may pretend that they don’t care, but by all accounts, they do. And as these new findings show, physical proximity can make this effect even stronger.