The weapons effect is a controversial theory described and debated in the scientific field of social psychology. It refers to the mere presence of a weapon or a picture of a weapon leading to more aggressive behavior in humans, particularly if these humans are already aroused. This should not be confused with the weapon focus, another social psychology finding. This effect was first described by Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage in 1967 in their paper "Weapons as Aggressions-Eliciting Stimuli" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper outlines an experiment conducted by the authors at the University of Wisconsin. The researchers tested their hypothesis that stimuli commonly associated with aggression (like weapons) can elicit more aggressive responses from people "ready to act" aggressively. Several psychology researchers have also criticized the concept of the weapons effect, questioning the original research study's findings because subsequent studies have been less successful at replicating the weapons effect, and alternative explanations have been proposed. For example, more recent research has proposed that there are more factors that influence aggression in a situation containing a weapon, such as an individual's familiarity with the weapons present. As work with the weapons effect progressed, researchers also demonstrated the weapons priming effect. This variation refers to even weapon-related words leading to more aggressive behavior in humans.
History
Original study The original study design by Berkowitz and LePage is as follows: The researchers recruited 100 male university students for one in-laboratory session. The students were randomly assigned to receive either 1 shock or 7 shocks, and were told that these shocks came from a peer. Following this, the researchers gave the students the opportunity to administer as many shocks as they wanted to the peer. For about one third of the students, a rifle and revolver were on the table near the shock key; half of these participants were told the weapon belonged to the targeted peer and the other half of these participants were told the weapon did not belong to the targeted peer. For the other two thirds of participants, there was either nothing on the table near the shock key or there was 2 badminton rackets on the table near the shock key. The dependent variable, or outcome measure, was how many shocks the participant administered to the targeted peer. The researchers found that the greatest number of shocks were administered by the students who had initially received 7 shocks and then were in the presence of the weapons, regardless of whether they were told the weapon belonged to the targeted peer or not. As such, the authors believe this was evidence for their original hypothesis that an aroused person would act more aggressively in the presence of weapons.
Replications and extensions In 1975, Ann Frodi made an attempt to replicate the original weapons effect study cross-culturally in a Swedish population. She extended the work to examine other possible stimuli which may have aggressive-stimulating connotations or aggressive-inhibiting connotations. Frodi used a very similar research study design; with a 100 male high school students either heavily angered or not by whom they thought was a peer. Then, participants had the opportunity to administer shocks to this "peer" with either no weapons, weapons, or a baby-bottle (constructed as an aggressive-inhibiting stimuli) on the table near the shock key. Frodi found that the participants exposed to weapons administered the greatest amount of shocks, but unlike the original study Berkowitz and Page study, there was no significant difference in numbers of shocks administered between those who were angered and who were not. Also, Frodi did not find evidence for aggressive-inhibiting stimuli; that is, the control group (with no weapons) and the baby-bottle group did not significantly differ on the number of administered shocks. In 1993, Arthur Kellermann and colleagues obtained data from police and medical examination records on risk factors in the home of occurring homicides. Information on control subjects (matched to be the same as homicide victims on sex, race, age range, and neighborhood) was also obtained. Using matched-pair methods, the researchers compared risk factors. The researchers found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly and independently related with homicide. However very few of the homicides involved household guns.
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