iven that huntersÕknowledge structures appear to contain more specificinformation about guns overall, and that hunters knowmore about the differences between hunting and assaultguns, the behavior of hunters may be more determinedby their cognition.

1980). These studies, along with our own research, in-dicate that hunters have a different understanding ofhow guns are used than do other people.

But students who owned hunting rifles andshotguns engaged in little antisocial behavior, at levelsonly slightly higher than students who did not own gunsof any kind.

First, although we believe our questionnaire method ofrecruiting individuals with different gun experiences wassuccessful, it is possible that some individuals classifiedas nonhunters had significant social experience withhunting and guns through family or friends.

Our findings have clear implications for social de-bates about how gun ownership and exposure to mediaviolence affect aggressive behavior

he aggressive behaviorinteraction pattern fit the affective and aggressive cog-nition patterns well. The lowest level of aggression wasdisplayed by hunters in the hunting gun cue condition,which is also the condition that produced the most po-sitive affect and the lowest aggression as a primary usescore

Unfortunately, our research design did notallow direct statistical tests of mediation

Specifically, we did not expect nonhunters to generatemore negative descriptions of hunting guns than of as-sault guns.

These findings are highly consistent with the resultsfrom Experiment 2, and with our claim that the acces-sibility of aggressive thoughts is an important factor inproducing aggressive behavior in the presence of guns.

Thirteen participants expressed suspicion—they eitherdid not believe they were competing against anotherperson or they realized the experiment concerned ag-gression

After 5 min, the experimenter spoke to theparticipant over an intercom and told him to begin theverbal reaction time task. When that task ended, the lastpicture (a hunting or assault rifle) remained on thecomputer screen for the remainder of the session.

Participants were shown eightobject images (one at a time) on a color monitor. Theseimages were: (1) light bulb, (2) baseball, (3) scissors, (4)wall clock, (5) globe, (6) phone, (7) paintbrush, and (8)gun

One hundred sixty-nine male undergraduates enrolledin introductory psychology courses at a large Midwest-ern university participated in partial fulfillment ofcourse requirement

riming effects

Taken together, these findingssuggest that hunting guns are associated with morenegative affect than assault guns among nonhunters,which could tie hunting guns more closely to aggressiveconcepts in memory.

ggression accessibilitywas calculated by subtracting the average reaction time toaggressive target words from the average reaction time toanti-aggressive target words.

The main effects of Hunter Status and Type of GunPrime were both nonsignificant (Fs<1

One hundred and eighty-eight male undergraduatestudents (102 hunters, 86 nonhunters),

The primes were six pictures of assault guns, sixpictures of hunting guns, and six pictures of naturescenes

Participants were instructed to identify thepictureÕs category (flower, gun, or mountain) by namingthe category out loud when the picture appeared on thescreen, and then to read the target word aloud as quicklyas possible after it appeared.

This suggests that non-hunters have negative attitudes toward hunting, perhapsbecause they object to the killing of animals

unters are also more posi-tively disposed toward hunting guns than are nonhun-ters, suggesting that among hunters, such guns arelinked in memory with nonaggressive, positive experi-ences

Our findings showed that hunters have different,more differentiated, and more specific knowledge aboutguns than do nonhunters.

We were interestedin the aggressiveness of the use that was listed first

Procedure

Fifty-eight undergraduate men from introductorypsychology classes at a large Midwestern universityparticipated in partial fulfillment of course require-ments

A participant was given a score of ‘‘1’’ if hecorrectly identified the type of gun, or a score of ‘‘0’’ ifhe did not identify it or identified it incorrectly

Materials

handguns

Color photographs of 6 hunting guns and 6 assaultguns, along with 6 photographs of flowers, wereprepared

formed consent form.

They were told that they would betaking part in research on picture recognition, and thatthey would be asked to describe several photographs.

his questionnaireassessed the respondentsÕprior experience with severalactivities and hobbies (e.g., sports, clubs, etc.), includingtwo involving guns (hunting and target shooting).

we were unable to re-cruit a sufficiently large sample of women for this ex-periment, or any of our experiments

Our first experiment was designed to determinewhether hunters have different knowledge structuresthan nonhunters about guns.

In the context of our research, individualknowledge structure differences should influence theextent to which aggressive thoughts and/or negative af-fect become accessible in the presence of gun cues, whichshould determine the level of aggressive behavior thatpeople display.

Stated another way, hunters may have knowledgestructures about guns that are more differentiated andthat differ in their affective tone and cognitive propertiesfrom the knowledge structures that nonhuners haveabout guns.

Guns often have aggressive meaning,but not always.

Regarding the weapons priming effect, repeatedexposure to the use of guns for aggressive purposes maylead people to form gun-related knowledge structuresthat include the idea that guns cause or enable aggres-sive behavior (perceptual schema), and informationabout how guns are used to threaten or harm people(behavioral script)

or example, highly accessibleaggressive thoughts may color interpretations of ongo-ing social interactions, or they may make aggressiveresolutions of a dispute seem more appropriate.

asserts that this ‘‘weapons effect’’ depends uponthe meaning we attach to guns and other weapons

‘If we tend to think of guns...as instruments that aredeliberately used to hurt others, rather than as objects ofsport and enjoyment, the mere presence of a gun...may

Experiment 2 revealed that pictures ofhunting guns were more likely to prime aggressive thoughts among nonhunters, whereas pictures of assault guns were more likely toprime aggressive thoughts among hunters. Experiment 3 showed differences in aggressive behavior following gun primes thatcorrespond to differences in affective and cognitive responses to gun cues