A new research says the “Holding a gun makes you think
others are too”
Wielding a gun increases a person’s bias to see guns in
the hands of others, new research from the University of Notre Dame shows.
Notre Dame Associate Professor of Psychology James
Brockmole, who specializes in human cognition and how the visual world guides
behavior, together with a colleague from Purdue University, conducted the
study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Perception and Performance.
In five experiments, subjects were shown multiple images
of people on a computer screen and determined whether the person was holding a
gun or a neutral object such as a soda can or cell phone. Subjects did this
while holding either a toy gun or a neutral object, such as a foam ball.
The researchers varied the situation in each experiment –
such as the having the people in the images sometimes wear ski masks, changing
the race of the person in the image or changing the reaction subjects were to
have when they perceived the person in the image to hold a gun. Regardless of
the situation the observers found themselves in, the study showed that
responding with a gun biased observers to report “gun present” more than did
responding with a ball. Thus, by virtue of affording the subject the
opportunity to use a gun, he or she was more likely to classify objects in a
scene as a gun and, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising
a firearm to shoot.
“Beliefs, expectations, and emotions can all influence an
observer’s ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns,” Dr. Brockmole
says. “Now we know that a person’s ability to act in certain ways can bias
their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways. It seems that
people have a hard time separating their thoughts about what they perceive and
their thoughts about how they can or should act.”
The researchers showed that the ability to act is a key
factor in their effects by showing that simply showing observers a nearby gun
did not influence their behavior; holding and using the gun was important.
“One reason we supposed that wielding a firearm might
influence object categorization stems from previous research in this area which
argues that people perceive the spatial properties of their surrounding
environment in terms of their ability to perform an intended action,” Brockmole
says.
For example, other research has shown that people with
broader shoulders tend to perceive doorways to be narrower, and softball
players with higher batting averages perceive the ball to be bigger. The
blending of perception and action representations could explain, in part, why
people holding a gun would tend to assume others are, too.
“In addition to the theoretical implications for event
perception and object identification, these findings have practical
implications for law enforcement and public safety,” Brockmole says.
Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1146529
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