@article{ref1,
title="Does the gun pull the trigger? automatic priming effects of weapon pictures and weapon names",
journal="Psychological science",
year="1998",
author="Anderson, Craig A. and Benjamin, Arlin James and Bartholow, Bruce D.",
volume="9",
number="4",
pages="308-314",
abstract="More than 30 years ago, Berkowitz and LePage (1967) published the first study demonstrating that the mere presence of a weapon increases aggressive behavior. These results have been replicated in several contexts by several research teams. The standard explanation of this weapons effect on aggressive behavior involves priming; identification of a weapon is believed to automatically increase the accessibility of aggression-related thoughts. Two experiments using a word pronunciation task tested this hypothesis. Both experiments consisted of multiple trials in which a prime stimulus (weapon or nonweapon) was followed by a target word (aggressive or nonaggressive) that was to be read as quickly as possible. The prime stimuli were words in Experiment 1 and pictures in Experiment 2. Both experiments showed that the mere identification of a weapon primes aggression-related thoughts. A process model linking weapons as primes to aggressive behavior is discussed briefly.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0956-7976",
doi="10.1111/1467-9280.00061",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00061"
}