Effects of Weapons on Aggressive Thoughts, Angry Feelings, Hostile Appraisals, and Aggressive Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Weapons Effect Literature

Abstract

A landmark 1967 study showed that simply seeing a gun can increase aggression—called the “weapons effect.” Since 1967, many other studies have attempted to replicate and explain the weapons effect. This meta-analysis integrates the findings of weapons effect studies conducted from 1967 to 2017 and uses the General Aggression Model (GAM) to explain the weapons effect. It includes 151 effect-size estimates from 78 independent studies involving 7,668 participants. As predicted by the GAM, our naïve meta-analytic results indicate that the mere presence of weapons increased aggressive thoughts, hostile appraisals, and aggression, suggesting a cognitive route from weapons to aggression. Weapons did not significantly increase angry feelings. Yet, a comprehensive sensitivity analysis indicated that not all naïve mean estimates were robust to the presence of publication bias. In general, these results suggest that the published literature tends to overestimate the weapons effect for some outcomes and moderators.