Wielding a gun increases judgments of others as holding guns: a randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: The gun embodiment effect is the consequence caused by wielding a gun on judgments of whether others are also holding a gun. This effect could be responsible for real-world instances when police officers shoot an unarmed person because of the misperception that the person had a gun. The gun embodiment effect is an instance of embodied cognition for which a person's tool-augmented body affects their judgments. The replication crisis in psychology has raised concern about embodied cognition effects in particular, and the issue of low statistical power applies to the original research on the gun embodiment effect. Thus, the first step was to conduct a high-powered replication. We found a significant gun embodiment effect in participants' reaction times and in their proportion of correct respo

SUBMITTER: Witt JK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7669937 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature