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Psych survey help

Enigma007

New member
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
Messages
1
Location
Seattle
Hi, I'm a psychology student at William Woods University in Missouri and am planning to create and administer a survey on people's emotional reactions to guns. I am a big believer in gun rights and am interested in finding out why many people perceive guns as harmful rather than protective. Specifically, I want to know why people still feel emotionally driven to promote "no gun zones" that leave important areas such as schools & universities vulnerable. I have not found many studies or surveys to guide me in this undergrad project. If anyone has any information that might help me, please pass it on. I don't even know where to start.
 

eye95

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
13,524
Location
Fairborn, Ohio, USA
I don't know how useful to your study this will be, but I suspect that the popular culture is primarily responsible for the typical misinformed impression folks have of guns.

Combine an emotional reaction with factually-challenged, but commonly accepted, mythology that has been perpetuated by the popular culture and you end up with a person who thinks he has an informed opinion, but who instead has an uninformed, irrational fear.
 

Grapeshot

Legendary Warrior
Joined
May 21, 2006
Messages
35,317
Location
Valhalla
People react as they are programed to do - they have been subjected to years of negative influences.

You could do worse than to start here:
http://gunfacts.info/

This on-line, free source takes the oft repeated misinformation and sets the record straight with great detail.
 

Superlite27

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2007
Messages
1,277
Location
God's Country, Missouri
T.V. does, indeed, rot people's brains.

In nearly 100% of all movies or T.V. shows, the use of a firearm is portrayed in one of only two ways:

1) The police have them to fight bad guys.

2) The bad guys have them to fight police.

Now, after decades of this polarized duality, the common perception is that firearms are good for police, yet bad for anyone else because firearms only fall into these two categories. There is an almost COMPLETE FAILURE by Hollywood to address any of the numerous other uses of firearms or categories of firearms ownership.

It's obvious. When was the last time you saw a law abiding civilian with a firearm on any show or in any movie?

How can the general population become comfortable with firearms and their lawful use when the only people seen in the media fall into two extremely narrow categories?

Do you honestly believe there are more police than CCW holders in any given city? For Missouri alone, there have been tens of thousands of CCW's issued since the inception of Missouri's permit system. Do you honestly think there are more cops on the streets of St. Louis than there are plain civilians who are lawfully carrying? I'd personally guess the cops are outnumbered by legally armed citizens by at least 2 to 1, if not more. (I base this on the simple fact that the local range is booked solid for their weekly CCW classes for the forseeable future, and has been for as long as I can remember. I'm unaware of any police academy cranking out cops at such a rate. And I'm only looking at one range. I wonder how others across the state are faring?)

Yet, why can I find no less than three cop shows on T.V. at this very instant, and every single one have firearms being used in only two ways: police or bad guys? Why is there absolutely no portrayal of legally armed citizens on any of them when in reality, both of these categories are a minority?

Because the general population is being lied to. It's called "lying by ommission".
 

sultan62

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
1,311
Location
Clayton, NC
I don't know of a good study, but you may be able to find something at http://jpfo.org/.

The problem is, IMO, that your issue is not easily quantifiable and therefore not easy to study.
 

skidmark

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Messages
10,444
Location
Valhalla
There are scads of research studies out there that are exactly what you want to duplicate - except that they do not look at the emotional response to guns. But now that I've just typed that I remembered that there have been two or three studies where subjects were shown pictures of folks carrying different objects, including guns, and asked to declare their level of apprehension. That might be something you want to look at.

Go refine your search terms to eliminate the word "gun" and you will find stuff you can copy/modify. And the most wonderfullest thing is that copying someone else's research project is actually considered good academics because you declare your objective to be wanting to see if results changed over time, and if so then propose a study to find out why.

stay safe.
 
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