Samenvatting

There is an impressive body of literature dealing with the so-called ‘cruelty link’. Two directions can be distinguished: animal abuse as a part of domestic violence and cruelty against animals as a predictor of a penchant for violence in later life. Related to these topics are a lot of methodological problems, for example regarding research designs, definitions of (domestic) violence and animal abuse, practices of cultural bias and prejudice regarding the position of animals in society and problems regarding the recognition of abuse. This contribution deals further more with the problematic claims of correlation and causation between violence against humans and animals. What is the risk of identifying ‘false positives’, that is making uncritical assumptions and accusations of (a penchant for) violent behaviour based on the (mis)interpretation of certain behaviour against animals?