Because I know everyone cares deeply on this issue, I’m happy to report that in a survey of 117 students, slightly less than half (46%) believe that they are “cute and cuddly and I lub them so much” while 53% feel “They’re antisocial and psychotic and I don’t trust them at all”. This difference is not significant (p = .4). Student level (100 versus 300 level class) and time of year (fall versus spring) also do not affect sentiment.
Conclusion: Half the population love little fur balls, fur balls that the other half of the population distrust deeply.
But you are on the Internet, what do you expect?
Oh, if you’re wondering why I have this data – I use Socrative to collect quiz data from my classes and as part of the first day of class stuff, I have them take a demo quiz. I ask the cat question there, just for fun. I analyze it because I’m a big freakin’ geek.