More junk science

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Mongo the Mutterer

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Study links guns, aggression in men
By BENEDICT CAREY
THE NEW YORK TIMES

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 ...
Click to expand...
I wonder what they would have found if they put Jessica Alba in the room instead of the handgun... :evil:
 
Since when did higher testosterone levels equal aggressive behavior?
More willing to defend oneself? Yes.
Less willing to surrender in a confrontation? Yes.
More aggressive? No - unless you consider any behavior that isn't craven and cowardly to be 'aggressive'.

...and unfortunately, I guess that's what it's come down to, isn't it?
 
I would think that a "testosterone surge" could be part of the fear/anxiety hormone ramp-up . . . if you are given a strange firearm, wouldn't your "Alert level" go up while you do the unloaded-check, etc?

Isn't our alert level high WHENEVER we deal with potentially dangerous items, like power saws? :confused:

Wouldn't a firearm in a gun-unfriendly place like a university cause the person encountering the firearm to start wondering what was going on? Wouldn't that "wondering" manifest itself as anxiety? Isn't IL a FOID state where anyone "in possession" of a firearm needs a FOID? Wouldn't that factor into the students' possible anxiety reaction?

Too much of the unknown here to make any sense. The study should have had a similar anxiety-provoking item like a power saw, opened straight razor or something similar as the control, not a stupid kiddie Moustrap game . .
 
In Illinois? Oh, big surprise, there.

And did they try the same thing with, say, a tennis racket? A shiney new PDA? Any sporting good or electronic toy that might have brought about the same reaction? Of course not.

Can we just get all the good people out of IL, make sure Daley stays in, and put a wall around it before the idiocy leaks out and contaminates other states? It's like one big Hazmat site of stupidity.
 
Their instructions: Take apart the game or the gun and write directions for assembly and disassembly.
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about hand grenades.

If someone were to sit me in a room and ask me to dissassemble a hand grenade, it might start stimulating fight-or-flight chemicals in me, as well.




Frickin' idiots.
 
Hm. I wonder if they did the same experiment with women?

Or make the guys watch a kung fu movie? Or Braveheart? Nothing like the feeling of a good solid mace...just makes you wanna smash something.
 
!!!

If I tried an experiment like that in High School I would be lucky to get an F and a stern lecture by my science teacher about how to perform experiments.

How can college and university students get away with horribly flawed experiments? Hmm...I wonder what would happen if they had a choice between Mousetrap or an average desktop computer?
 
I get a feelling similar to working on a gun when I am working with wood and power tools. Does that mean that mean that carpentry leads to aggression? I guess Pychology isn't one of Knox College's premier feilds of study. It's probably taught by the girls softball coach (just like typing was back in HS).
 
Interesting

As soon as I read it, I thought that they have to divide the groups into gun owners and non-gunowners. And provide other tools too. A router, for example, always gets my attention.
Also fails to address the often quoted fact that CCW holders have a much lower rate of violent crime than the population as a whole.
 
It just kills me that I live here with smart people who do shady experiments that are firearm related ,or the quality FOID system that works OOOO so well. God I hate this place.:fire: :cuss: AH HA I've got it do the same test with the same guys but put a Jennings/Bryco in front of one guy and a Ed Brown in front of another guy and check them levels again. When one guy realizes he has a paper weight and the other guy see's he has quality firearm the levels will be the same as the first test. Kind of like a Pinto and Corvette.
 
I am unsure of the science of elevated testosterone as it relates to handling guns but is it so inappropriate to experience a tumescence when introduced to a large handgun? Happens to me all the time. :eek:
 
Notive that it was a "large" handgun. See ... size DOES matter! :neener:

Seriously, these were students. I think it is fair and reasonable today to assume that most (if not all) would have had no knowledge of how to disassemble or reassemble a "large" handgun. And, males being males, we pride ourselves on being able to take things apart and put them together without reading the instructions. More than likely most of the students found the exercise rather frustrating, and it's my suggestion that the increased levels of testosterone were engendered by the frustration factor of dealing with a mechanical device they couldn't intuitively disassemble and reassemble rather than due to the simple fact that said object was a GUN!
 
Seriously, these were students. I think it is fair and reasonable today to assume that most (if not all) would have had no knowledge of how to disassemble or reassemble a "large" handgun. And, males being males, we pride ourselves on being able to take things apart and put them together without reading the instructions. More than likely most of the students found the exercise rather frustrating, and it's my suggestion that the increased levels of testosterone were engendered by the frustration factor of dealing with a mechanical device they couldn't intuitively disassemble and reassemble rather than due to the simple fact that said object was a GUN!
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was thinking. Mousetrap is a simple, plastic, easy to see how to dissassemble thing.

Say you had put a 4 barrel carbeurator in front of them to take apart, and assuming they weren't old musclecar junkies, they'd get just as frustrated and you'd get the same reaction as the gun.
 
Handling a gun stirs a hormonal reaction in men that primes them for aggression....

...the psychologists measured saliva testosterone again and found that the levels had spiked in men ...
Click to expand...

There's the Gender Feminist "Big Lie":

Testosterone = Aggression.
 
NO HABALA - "About the most useful thing the New York Times is good for is lining the bottom of pet cages."

You gotta admit, it's not bad for starting the kindling in your campfire. :)

L.W.
 
I tried an experiment myself.

On a table I put 2 plates.

On one plate I put a big steaming pile of dog crap.

The other plate had a haggis on it.

100 out of 100 people chose the haggis. Everyone in the universe loves haggis!!!
 
When I handle my wife I get higher testosterone levels and aggressive behavior of a type:rolleyes:
 
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