Department of Psychology & Philosophy, Texas Woman's University, Denton, TX, USA.
Psychol Rep. 2020 Aug;123(4):1198-1206. doi: 10.1177/0033294119844982. Epub 2019 Apr 29.
There is anecdotal and empirical evidence for black cat bias, the phenomenon where cats () with black coats are viewed more negatively, adopted less often, and euthanized more often than lighter colored cats. Despite the anecdotal claims, there is scarce empirical evidence for black cat bias. Using evaluations of cat photos, the researchers examined differences in people's attitudes toward black and non-black cats of various colorations on measures of perceived aggression, perceived friendliness, and willingness to adopt. The researchers also explored whether participants' levels of religiosity, superstitious beliefs, and prejudicial racial attitudes were related to black cat bias. Finally, the researchers explored whether black cat bias was related to difficulties people had in reading the emotions of black cats compared to non-black cats. This study provided evidence of black cat bias in the sample. People exhibiting higher degrees of black cat bias had higher levels of superstition, but not religiosity or racial prejudice. Additionally, people who had difficulty reading the emotions of black cats tended to exhibit a stronger bias against adopting black cats.
有一些轶事证据和经验证据表明存在黑猫偏见，即人们普遍认为黑色皮毛的猫看起来更负面，因此被收养的几率较低，被安乐死的几率较高，而颜色较浅的猫则相反。尽管有这些轶事证据，但几乎没有经验证据表明存在黑猫偏见。研究人员使用猫的照片评估，研究了人们对不同颜色的黑猫和非黑猫的攻击性、友好度和收养意愿等方面的态度差异。研究人员还探讨了参与者的宗教信仰、迷信信仰和偏见性种族态度是否与黑猫偏见有关。最后，研究人员还探讨了人们在阅读黑猫和非黑猫的情绪方面是否存在困难，是否与黑猫偏见有关。这项研究在样本中提供了黑猫偏见的证据。表现出更高程度的黑猫偏见的人迷信程度更高，但宗教信仰或种族偏见程度较低。此外，那些难以读懂黑猫情绪的人往往对收养黑猫表现出更强的偏见。
