Foes seem fearsome when holding a weapon
April 12th, 2012 - 10:15 pm ICT by IANSWashington, April 12 (IANS) Holding a weapon makes men look taller and more muscular, which only confirms what scrawny thugs have long known, new research says.
Researchers, led by Daniel Fessler from the University of California-Los Angeles, conducted a number of online surveys to determine that men holding a gun or a large kitchen knife were viewed as larger and more muscular than men holding non-threatening objects.
“For nearly all vertebrates, size matters - bigger animals win fights with smaller animals. Human psychology reflects this, as people use size as a way of conceptualizing how dangerous another person might be,” said Fessler, the journal public library of Science ONE reported.
The findings suggest an unconscious mental mechanism that gauges a potential adversary and then translates the magnitude of that threat into the same dimensions used by animals to size up their adversaries: size and strength, according to a university statement.
This pattern cannot be explained by any actual correlation between gun ownership and physical size, the researchers concluded.
Tags: adversaries, adversary, animals, california los angeles, correlation, fessler, foes, gun ownership, human psychology, kitchen knife, magnitude, online surveys, public library of science, university of california, university of california los angeles, vertebrates