The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning

Pierre, Joseph M.

doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0373-z

Cited by 40 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…44 Stress and anxiety are demonstrated predictors of improper firearm storage, which may portend firearm-related incidents. 36 Accessibility to a firearm has been proved to increase risks of suicide 45 and firearmrelated incidents. [46][47][48] Due to the use of retrospective databases, this study is subject to several limitations including coding errors, missing data, and reporting bias.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New York State and the Nation: Trends in Firearm Purchases and Firearm Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Donnelly¹,

Barie

Grigorian³

et al. 2020

The American Surgeon™

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Background The impacts of social stressors on violence during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are unknown. We hypothesized that firearm purchases and violence would increase surrounding the pandemic. This study determined the impact of COVID-19 and shelter-in-place (SIP) orders on firearm purchases and incidents in the United States (US) and New York State (NYS). Methods Scatterplots reflected trends in firearm purchases, incidents, and deaths over a 16-month period (January 2019 to April 2020). Bivariate comparisons of SIP and non-SIP jurisdictions before and after SIP (February 2020 vs. April 2020) and April 2020 vs. April 2019 were performed with the Mann-Whitney U test. Results The incidence of COVID-19 in the US increased between February and April 2020 from 24 to 1 067 660 and in NYS from 0 to 304 372. When comparing February to March to April in the US, firearm purchases increased 33.6% then decreased 22.0%, whereas firearm incidents increased 12.2% then again increased by 3.6% and firearm deaths increased 23.8% then decreased in April by 3.8%. In NYS, comparing February to March to April 2020, firearm purchases increased 87.6% then decreased 54.8%, firearm incidents increased 110.1% then decreased 30.8%, and firearm deaths increased 57.1% then again increased by 6.1%. In both SIP and non-SIP jurisdictions, April 2020 firearm purchases, incidents, deaths, and injuries were similar to April 2019 and February 2020 (all P = NS). Discussion Coronavirus disease 2019–related stressors may have triggered an increase in firearm purchases nationally and within NYS in March 2020. Firearm incidents also increased in NYS. SIP orders had no effect on firearm purchases and firearm violence.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New York State and the Nation: Trends in Firearm Purchases and Firearm Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Donnelly¹,

Barie

Grigorian³

et al. 2020

The American Surgeon™

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“…We recognize that this is a simplifying assumption, because it is easy to generate examples in which consumer purchases might address psychological concerns. For instance, buying firearms could address psychological needs for control and safety (Pierre, 2019;Shepherd & Kay, 2017). This utility function looks similar to pure economic preference systems and instruments used in microeconomics to describe the individual´s decision-making.…”

Section: Expected Value Arising From the Satisfaction Of Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Market for Belief Systems: A Formal Model of Ideological Choice

Gries

Mueller

Jost

2020

Preprint

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Belief systems play a crucial role when it comes to guiding human information processing, evaluation, judgement, behavior, and social coordination. But why do individuals and groups adopt the specific ideologies they do? And is it possible to use the tools of economics to understand the decisions that are made in the market for ideology? To address these and related questions, we synthesize insights garnered from standard rational choice models, characteristics demand theory, and the distance theory of voting, as well as theory and research on "elective affinities" in psychology. We offer a formal analysis of the role of psychological and consumption needs in shaping the individual's choice of ideology under circumstances of uncertainty and limited resources and other constraints, including informational costs associated with learning about the potential match values of specific ideologies. After providing a few examples, we mention one non-obvious implication of our model, namely that people can be "wrong" about their own ideological preferences according to the criteria of rational consistency and utility maximization. The Market for Ideology 2 If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire. (Friedrich Nietzsche, letter to his sister) Socially shared beliefs, including political and religious systems of thought, play a meaningful, if not decisive, role in the lives of most individuals (Jost, 2006). According to the Pew Research Center, three-fourths of Americans endorse some religious creed, and 45% report relying on those beliefs to make major life decisions (Pew, 2016). More than half of the believers worry that their belief systems are losing influence in America, and roughly 40% perceive conflict between their own beliefs and mainstream culture (Pew, 2020a). Even atheists and agnostics may hold "New Age" beliefsincluding beliefs in astrology, reincarnation, spiritual energy, and psychic phenomena (Pew, 2018). With respect to politics, ideological worldviews affect voting behavior and other forms of participation (Jost, in press). In recent years, for example, they have inspired millions around the globe to join demonstrations on the left in support of the natural environment and against institutionalized racism-as well as demonstrations on the right against immigrants and Muslims. All over the world, many subscribe to conspiracy theories, such as the belief that "the coronavirus outbreak was intentionally planned by powerful people" (Pew, 2020b). According to Ernest Gellner (1959), ideology "manifests itself simultaneously as a set of ideas or doctrines, a set of practices, and a more or less closely organized, more or less institutionalized social group. The ideas form a reasonably connected system, related in part by mutual entailment such that if key ideas are understood, the others follow" (pp. 231-232). An ideology, then, is a network of attitudes and beliefs, the elements of which are linked together logically and/or psychologic...

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“…If the (il)legitimacy of gun rights is based on the values of American citizens, then how might we expect most sacred values to manifest regarding gun rights in voters’ legitimations? To answer this question, we must first turn to the literature on gun culture (for a review, see Pierre 2019). For example, decades ago, scholars found little differences in the attitudes about gun control between Canadians and Americans (Mauser and Margolis 1992).…”

Section: Theory and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Popular Basis of the State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: How American Voters Use Political Values to (De)Legitimate Gun Rights

Vila‐Henninger

2020

Sociological Inquiry

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Stemming from Max Weber (1946 [1919]), many sociologists understand legitimate violence as monopolized by the state. The literature has established that for the state to maintain legitimacy it must either demonstrate sustained efficacy or have its legitimacy based on the values of its citizens (Lipset 1963a). The statistics on gun control in the United States (Giffords Law Center 2020) and sociological literature (e.g., Hill et al. 2020a, 2020b) demonstrate the sustained inefficacies of gun rights. Thus, this article investigates the legitimacy of these rights in terms of voters’ political values. I use a case set (Small 2009) of 120 voters interviewed in Arizona from 2013 to 2015. My analysis is an example of qualitative secondary analysis (Duchesne 2017; Belot and Van Ingelgom 2017; Davidson et al. 2019). My findings confirm and extend the literature on the bases of legitimate violence in the United States (e.g., Shapira and Simon 2018; Carlson 2019). Furthermore, my findings provide evidence of voter socialization into a political culture that uses public, declarative, and non‐declarative forms of culture in conjunction (e.g., Lizardo 2017). These findings also bridge the sociological literature on values (Wuthnow 2008), political sociology (Lipset 1963a), the sociology of culture (Miles 2015), and moral psychology (Haidt 2012).

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The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning

Cited by 40 publications

References 66 publications

New York State and the Nation: Trends in Firearm Purchases and Firearm Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic

New York State and the Nation: Trends in Firearm Purchases and Firearm Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Market for Belief Systems: A Formal Model of Ideological Choice

The Popular Basis of the State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence: How American Voters Use Political Values to (De)Legitimate Gun Rights

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