Is It a Dangerous World Out There? The Motivational Bases of American Gun Ownership
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23320164 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wolfgang Stroebe (0000-0003-2767-2838, University of Groningen, The Netherlands, corresponding author), N Pontus Leander (0000-0002-3073-5038, University of Groningen, The Netherlands), Arie W Kruglanski (0000-0002-4777-9299, University of Maryland, College Park) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1071-1085 |
| Publication date | 2017-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0146-1672 • E-ISSN: 1552-7433 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0146167217703952 |
| PMID | 28903713 |
| OpenAlex | W2624496292 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 64 |
| References cited | 25 |
Americans are the world’s best armed citizens and public polling suggests protection/self-defense is their main reason for gun ownership. However, there is virtually no psychological research on gun ownership. The present article develops the first psychological process model of defensive gun ownership—specifically, a two-component model that considers both the antecedents and consequences of owning a gun for protection/self-defense. We demonstrate that different levels of threat construal—the specific perceived threat of assault and a diffuse threat of a dangerous world—independently predict handgun ownership; we also show how utility judgments can explain the motivated reasoning that drives beliefs about gun rights. We tested our model in two independent samples of gun owners (total N = 899), from just before and after the Orlando mass shooting. This study illustrates how social-cognitive theories can help explain what motivates Americans to own handguns and advocate for broad rights to carry and use them.
Construal level theory · Poison control · Polling · Computer Science · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Gun Ownership and Violence Research · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
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Mass shootings and the salience of guns as means of compensation for thwarted goals
The Dark Side of Safety
Honor Endorsement and Increased Firearm Purchasing Behavior and Intentions During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Disentangling the coping process in White rural men who carry guns
Immigration status and gun control support in higher education
Associations Between Gun-Involved Victimization, Poly-Victimization, and Gun Carrying in a U.S. National Sample of Younger Adults
Contributions of Biobehavioral Sciences to the Study and Prevention of Firearm Violence
Protective Gun Ownership as a Coping Mechanism
Toward a Standard Measure of Gun Ownership
Attributions as Anchors
Understanding Gun Ownership in the Twenty-First Century
In the Eye of the Beholder
Under God and Under Threat
Positive and Negative Affective Processes Associated With Firearm Acquisition and Ownership
Community-Based Development of Tools to Assess Firearm-Related Attitudes and Beliefs
“Like a Double-edged Sword”
For Love or Need
Belief in a Dangerous World Does Not Explain Substantial Variance in Political Attitudes, But Other World Beliefs Do
Changes in dangerous and competitive worldviews during the coronavirus epidemic
Neveragain
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Firearms Law and Scholarship Beyond Bullets and Bodies
An apple in one hand, a gun in the other
“If Everyone Has a Gun, Then I Should Too.”
Catholics and capital punishment
People believe misinformation is a threat because they assume others are gullible
Why Americans increasingly claim to own guns for self-protection
Adolescents’ Gun Carrying in Context
The massacre mentality and school rampage shootings in the United States
Loneliness and firearm acquisition among low-income U.S. veterans
Exploring the mediating role of exposure to partisan media between the authoritarian personality and gun control attitudes
Gun ownership and fear
Associations Between Exposure to Neighborhood Violence and Firearm Possession Among Chicago Adults
Antecedent Ideological Profiles and Negative Socio-political Outcomes of LGBTQ+ Conspiracy Beliefs
The Cultural Ecology of Gun Violence
By all means necessary
Pictures of you
A Matter of Degree? Fear, Anxiety, and Protective Gun Ownership in the United States
Gun Ownership and Life Satisfaction in the United States
Are guns the new dog whistle? Gun control, racial resentment, and vote choice
Yes we can? Group efficacy beliefs predict collective action, but only when hope is high
Guns and Democracy
Social Disruption, Gun Buying, and Anti-System Beliefs
How Attitudes about Guns Develop over Time
Queers with Guns? Against the LGBT Grain
Gun Ownership, Threat, and Gun Attitudes in an Experiment
Transmitting Desire
Racial Resentment or Sexism? White Americans' Outgroup Attitudes as Predictors of Gun Ownership and NRA Membership
Implicit Resentment and the Gun Policy Preferences of White Americans
Who Might Buy a Gun? Results from the Guns in American Life Survey
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Gun Owners and Gun Control
Peace through superior firepower
Asymmetric issue evolution in the American gun rights debate
How does gun violence affect Americans' trust in each other
A Bulwark against Tyranny? Fear of the Government and Fear-based Gun Purchasing in Recent Years
Gun purchase interest as backlash to Black Lives Matter protests
Clinging to Guns and Religion? A Research Note Testing the Role of Protestantism in Shaping Gun Identity in the United States
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Gun Ownership
Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment
Keep calm and conceal carry
Assessing the relationship between gun ownership and fear of mass shootings
Learning to Need a Gun
A theory of goal systems
Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control
Self-Protection and the Culture of Honor
A Newer Look
Construal-level theory of psychological distance.
Title unavailable
Why People Own Guns
Television News and the Cultivation of Fear of Crime
A dual-process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice
The incidence of defensive firearm use by US crime victims, 1987 through 1990
The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Stranger and Nonstranger Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010
Differential indicators of defensive weapon ownership
The effect of perceived risk and victimization on plans to purchase a gun for self-protection
The Social Determinants of Gun Ownership
The “more is less” effect in equifinal structures
A theory of human motivation
Racial Resentment and Whites’ Gun Policy Preferences in Contemporary America
Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling
The case for motivated reasoning
Armed Citizens and the Stories They Tell
| Unique citing works | 64 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 62 |