Handling a Gun May Raise Testosterone Levels and Aggression

Psychology student Jennifer Klinesmith and several of her professors at Knox College in Galesburg, IL, designed an interesting study to evaluate the mental and physiological changes in men’s bodies after they handle guns. The study was performed on a group of 18- to 22-year old college students who were unaware of the purpose of the study.

The study was described to the students as a test to determine the effect of attention to detail on taste sensitivity. To begin the test, Klinesmith collected a saliva sample from each of the men and tested it to determine their level of testosterone. Then, each man was led into a room alone and seated at a table with an object on it. The man was instructed to take the object apart and put it back together according to printed instructions.

For half of the study participants, that object was a child’s Mousetrap game. For the other half, the object they had to take apart and put back together again was a pellet gun that looked like a Desert Eagle automatic handgun. Fifteen minutes later, a repeat round of saliva samples was collected from each man. Each was then asked to take a drink from a 3-ounce cup of water with a drop of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce in it.

For the final part of the study, each man was given another 3-ounce cup of water and a bottle of the Frank’s hot sauce. They were told that the water was going to be given to the next man in the study, and that they could put as much hot sauce in the water as they wanted to, without that man knowing who did it. This sort of hot-sauce is a common tactic in psychological studies; the more aggressive a person is feeling, the more hot sauce he will put in the next person’s drink.

The researchers were not surprised by the results of the study. In the group of men who handled the gun, testosterone levels went up about 100 times more than those of the men in the Mousetrap group. Also, the men who disassembled and reassembled the gun put three times more hot sauce in the water for the next guy—on average, about half an ounce. On an individual level, the more a man’s testosterone level went up after handling the gun, the more hot sauce he put in the water.

Klinesmith and her colleagues concluded that the findings of their study support the questions raised by many people about whether the prevalence of guns in today’s’ society can contribute to violent behavior. "Although our study is clearly far from definitive," Klinesmith said, "Its results suggest that guns may indeed increase aggressiveness partially via changes in the hormone testosterone."

After the study’s conclusion, the participants were given full details about what had taken place. Many of the men said that they were disappointed when they learned that the water they’d spiked liberally with Frank’s wasn’t actually going to be given to an unsuspecting victim. The study appears in this month’s issue of Psychological Science.