The yellow-breasted chat was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[4] Linnaeus based his account on the "yellow brested chat" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.

In addition, the former grouping of the yellow-breasted chat as a warbler was not too far off because phylogenomic studies have placed Parulidae as sister to a clade that includes Icteridae.

Those results make it reasonable to view Parulidae the sister group to the clade comprising Icteridae and Icteriidae, as in Oliveros et al.[11] The cladogram below shows the relationship of the yellow-breasted chat to the other families.

[11] The species numbers are taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC).

Thus, less experienced field birdwatchers sometimes overlook chats after mistaking their song for species such as grey catbirds and brown thrashers, which share similar habitat preferences and skulking habits, though are generally much more abundant.

During the breeding season, chats are at their most conspicuous, as they usually sing from exposed locations and even fly in the open while gurgling their songs.

Chats are apparently vigilant guards of their nests, as parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds is not as frequent as with other cup-nest builders.

Insects up to moderate sizes, including grasshoppers, bugs, beetles, weevils, bees, wasps, tent caterpillars, ants, moths, and mayflies, are typically preyed upon and are gleaned from dense vegetation.

This species, though less vulnerable than other cup nesters, is still sometimes victim to brood parasitism from brown-headed cowbirds that have taken advantage of the fragmentation of eastern forests to expand their range during the last century.