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...
Recent research (Anderson, Benjamin, & Bartholow, 1998) indicates that the presence of guns increases the accessibility of aggressive thoughts via automatic priming. Our research examined whether this ‘‘weapons priming effect’’ differs depending on the structure...