Citation

Benjamin AJ, Kepes S, Bushman BJ. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 2018; 22(4): 347-377.

Affiliation

The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1088868317725419

PMID

28918699

Abstract

Guns are associated with aggression. A landmark 1967 study showed that simply seeing a gun can increase aggression-called the "weapons effect." This meta-analysis integrates the findings of weapons effect studies conducted from 1967 to 2017. It includes 162 effect-size estimates from 78 independent studies involving 7,668 participants. The theoretical framework used to explain the weapons effect was the General Aggression Model (GAM), which proposes three routes to aggression-cognitive, affective, and arousal. The GAM also proposes that hostile appraisals can facilitate aggression. As predicted by the GAM, the mere presence of weapons increased aggressive thoughts, hostile appraisals, and aggression, suggesting a cognitive route from weapons to aggression. Weapons did not significantly increase angry feelings. Only one study tested the effects of weapons on arousal. These findings also contribute to the debate about social priming by showing that incidental exposure to a stimulus (weapon) can affect subsequent related behavior (aggression).

Language: en

Keywords

General Aggression Model; aggression; social priming; weapons effect