Black Dog Bias in the Courtroom: A Potential Disadvantage?

ABSTRACT

Because facility dogs can provide comfort to vulnerable testifying witnesses, they are beginning to become commonplace in some courtrooms. However, certain dogs (and by extension the witness they testify with) might be discriminated against because of their coat color. Known as “Black Dog Bias” (BDB), black dogs are often reported to be discriminated against in animal adoption centers, resulting in higher rates of euthanasia. Black dogs are often viewed as less friendly, less emotionally stable, and more aggressive than their other-colored counterparts. Other research, however, argues that BDB does not exist; rather, bias against certain dogs is associated with phenotypic traits or breed. With the proliferation of facility dog employment in courtrooms, there is a possibility that BDB also could manifest in this setting. This study investigated whether BDB occurs in the courtroom and affects perceptions of the witness through the social psychological process of transference. A child witness, as they were testifying about a sexual assault, was either comforted by a black dog, a white dog, or no dog. Counterintuitively, community-member participants (n = 133) believed that the witnesses appeared less sad, less emotional, and happier when comforted by a black dog compared with a white dog. Furthermore, perceptions of the witness were not affected by the facility dog, suggesting that transference did not occur. A potential explanation for the findings posits that a stereotype violation occurs when a black dog serves as a facility dog, allowing the animal to be perceived positively. This finding adds a new caveat to BDB – that when a black dog fulfills a positive role, this might cause a stereotype violation that leads to positive evaluations of that dog. These findings also contribute to existing literature that the presence of facility dogs is more beneficial than harmful to courtroom settings, suggesting that they do not seem to unfairly sway juries.

KEYWORDS:

• Bias; black dog syndrome
• facility dog
• human–animal interaction
• jurors
• stereotype

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The data were collected in conjunction with another study (McDermott, 2022); however, all analyses presented here are unique to this article and have not been published elsewhere.

Additional information

Funding

A thank you to the Regents Service Program Grant at the University of Nevada, Reno for funding participation collection for this research.