Replying to Study: If you hold a gun, you imagine others with guns

A fresh study might bring some perspective to the recent shooting of a black teenager that shocked the United States. The study shows that holding a weapon in your hand makes you see a weapon in another person's hand as well.

Researchers from Notre Dame University surveyd this phenomenon in many test series.

The test subjects held either a gun or a softball in their hand and looked at pictures of people walking towards them while carrying something in their hands. The set was changed many times, for example changing the race or clothing of the person coming towards them, sometimes even with ski masks on.

The test subjects had to say if the people coming towards them were holding a gun or some neutral object, such as a cell phone or a flask, and describe how they would react to this person in real life.

The results showed that the test subjects' views for the oncoming people were guided by the object held in their hands. If they were holding a gun, they more often thought that the other person was holding a gun as well, and described that they were ready to defend themselves.

If they were holding the ball, most subjects thought the others only had a neutral object in their hands.

The phenomenon could only be triggered if the subjects were actually holding the weapon in their grip, and not by for example having it in their view on a table before them.



I think this is a pretty interesting psychological phenomenon, and not too far off to be compared to with mirroring one's own world views to those around them. A liar often thinks people around him are lying as well, and ignorantly happy people often see the world in a brighter light than those struggling with harsh realities of the world we live in.

Being armed and holding a weapon might empower many people, but also create this kind of reaction of a mix of fear and doubt for others around them. The whole study will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology, anxious to check it out.