Post by Woody Williams on May 11, 2006 12:45:23 GMT -5
PUBLICATION: Edmonton Journal
DATE: 2006.05.10
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Body & Health
PAGE: A17
BYLINE: Benedict Carey
SOURCE: New York Times News Service
WORD COUNT: 337
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guns may trigger aggressive hormones in men
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Handling a gun stirs a hormonal reaction in men that primes them for
aggression, new research suggests.
Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., enrolled 30 male
students in what they described as a taste study. The researchers took
saliva samples from the students and measured testosterone levels.
They then seated the young men, one at a time, at a table in a bare
room; on the table were pieces of paper and either the board game Mouse
Trap or a large handgun.
Their instructions: Take apart the game or the gun and write directions
for assembly and disassembly.
Fifteen minutes later, the psychologists measured saliva testosterone
again and found that the levels had spiked in men who had handled the
gun but had stayed steady in those working with the board game.
The "taste sensitivity" phase of the experiment was in fact intended to
measure aggressive impulses.
After the writing assignment, the young men were asked to rate the taste
of a drink, a cup of water with a drop of hot sauce in it. They were
then told to prepare a drink for the next person in the experiment,
adding as much hot sauce as they liked.
"Those who had handled the gun put in about three times as much as the
others -- 13 grams on average, which is a lot," said Tim Kasser,one of
the authors. He worked with Francis McAndrew, also of Knox, and Jennifer
Klinesmith, a former student who had the idea for the study, due to
appear in Psychological Science.
Critics of research linking guns to aggressiveness have argued that
people who handle guns in experiments tend to act out or think violent
thoughts simply because they sense the expectations of the
experimenters. The same could be true of this study: the students might
have perceived the nature of the study, consciously or not, and acted
differently.
Yet the aggression was not entirely psychological: The higher the peaks
in testosterone, the more hot sauce the students dumped into the drink.
And once they learned the real aims of the study, several were
disappointed that their cocktails would not be served to a fellow
student.
DATE: 2006.05.10
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Body & Health
PAGE: A17
BYLINE: Benedict Carey
SOURCE: New York Times News Service
WORD COUNT: 337
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guns may trigger aggressive hormones in men
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Handling a gun stirs a hormonal reaction in men that primes them for
aggression, new research suggests.
Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., enrolled 30 male
students in what they described as a taste study. The researchers took
saliva samples from the students and measured testosterone levels.
They then seated the young men, one at a time, at a table in a bare
room; on the table were pieces of paper and either the board game Mouse
Trap or a large handgun.
Their instructions: Take apart the game or the gun and write directions
for assembly and disassembly.
Fifteen minutes later, the psychologists measured saliva testosterone
again and found that the levels had spiked in men who had handled the
gun but had stayed steady in those working with the board game.
The "taste sensitivity" phase of the experiment was in fact intended to
measure aggressive impulses.
After the writing assignment, the young men were asked to rate the taste
of a drink, a cup of water with a drop of hot sauce in it. They were
then told to prepare a drink for the next person in the experiment,
adding as much hot sauce as they liked.
"Those who had handled the gun put in about three times as much as the
others -- 13 grams on average, which is a lot," said Tim Kasser,one of
the authors. He worked with Francis McAndrew, also of Knox, and Jennifer
Klinesmith, a former student who had the idea for the study, due to
appear in Psychological Science.
Critics of research linking guns to aggressiveness have argued that
people who handle guns in experiments tend to act out or think violent
thoughts simply because they sense the expectations of the
experimenters. The same could be true of this study: the students might
have perceived the nature of the study, consciously or not, and acted
differently.
Yet the aggression was not entirely psychological: The higher the peaks
in testosterone, the more hot sauce the students dumped into the drink.
And once they learned the real aims of the study, several were
disappointed that their cocktails would not be served to a fellow
student.
