Cognitive control in the presence of a gun.

Abstract

Guns are more prevalent in academic spaces than ever before. Some policy makers have proposed that educators carry guns in schools as a means of self-defense and to protect students, and several states explicitly permit the possession of guns on college campuses. But the psychological consequences of being around guns are relatively unknown. In two preregistered experiments, we tested the hypothesis that being in the presence of a gun undermines cognitive control in a laboratory setting. In both experiments, college students completed a test of attention control [the Squared tasks; A. P. Burgoyne <i>et al.</i>, <i>J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.</i> <b>152</b>, 2369-2402 (2023)] in the presence of a (fake) gun or a stapler. In both Experiment 1 (<i>N</i> = 290) and Experiment 2 (<i>N</i> = 338) participants in the gun condition scored worse in three of four analyses pertaining to total task performance. These findings suggest that the presence of guns may impair cognitive control and point to heretofore unrecognized potential implications of the "hardening" of academic spaces.