CptStern
suckmonkey
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this new research says what most people have been saying for decades:
In Men, 'Trigger-Happy' May Be a Hormonal Impulse
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/h...9e0f484e178c28&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
In Men, 'Trigger-Happy' May Be a Hormonal Impulse
NYtimes said:Handling a gun stirs a hormonal reaction in men that primes them for aggression, new research suggests.
Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., enrolled 30 male students in what they described as a taste study. The researchers took saliva samples from the students and measured testosterone levels.
They then seated the young men, one at a time, at a table in a bare room; on the table were pieces of paper and either the board game Mouse Trap or a large handgun.
Their instructions: take apart the game or the gun and write directions for assembly and disassembly.
Fifteen minutes later, the psychologists measured saliva testosterone again and found that the levels had spiked in men who had handled the gun but had stayed steady in those working with the board game.
The "taste sensitivity" phase of the experiment was in fact intended to measure aggressive impulses. After the writing assignment, the young men were asked to rate the taste of a drink, a cup of water with a drop of hot sauce in it. They were then told to prepare a drink for the next person in the experiment, adding as much hot sauce as they liked.
"Those who had handled the gun put in about three times as much as the others — 13 grams on average, which is a lot," said Tim Kasser, one of the authors. He worked with Francis McAndrew, also of Knox, and Jennifer Klinesmith, a former student who had the idea for the study, due to appear in Psychological Science.
Yet the aggression was not entirely psychological: the higher the peaks in testosterone, the more hot sauce the students dumped into the drink. And once they learned the real aims of the study, several were disappointed that their cocktails would not be served to a fellow student.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/h...9e0f484e178c28&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss