WEBVTT - Toy Guns 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.440 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.400 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.239 Rob I've got a question for you to start off 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.880 with today. I want to know if you, as a 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.800 child had a toy that I also had. I think 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.440 it was really common and I got it for Christmas 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:33.080 one year, I remember, and what it was was a 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.320 a plastic alien pistol that when you pulled the trigger, 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.640 it would play one of a sequence of like five 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.480 different sequences of sound effects. So the first one would 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:45.960 go like do you do? You do you do? And 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.640 then the next one would go what what what? And 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.720 the next one would be like I've got that kind 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.880 of memorized in my brain. Uh. And in the version 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.320 that I had, there was like a little red and 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.400 blue clear plastic case over some led lights that would 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.360 shoot back and forth when you fired the gun. Do 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.160 you know what I'm talking about? I don't know what 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:07.840 the name of this thing is, so I don't know 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.679 how to look it up. I I don't think I 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:12.920 had the exact one you had, but I must have 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.240 had like an earlier model because I had one. It 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.800 was black and red, and it did the exact same 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.000 sound effects you're discussing here, So I feel like it 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.840 had to have been the same tech in just a 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:29.240 different color, or like a slightly different plastic toy gun. Now, 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.360 there was one thing I liked about this toy gun, 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.800 which was that every time you pull the trigger, it 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.480 would make a different sound effect, which means that it 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.080 was almost like you could imagine that you had like 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.360 one of the Stormtrooper blasters from the very beginning of 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.480 Star Wars, where you have multiple settings. You can set, 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:48.600 I guess for the regular blast, and then you can 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.120 set for stun. Except the problem was you couldn't toggle 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.200 the sound effects on this thing. They just went in 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.560 a sequence, So if you wanted to get one sound 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.800 effect in particular, you'd have to pull the trigger a 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.680 certain number of time to like run through the cycle 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.080 and get back there. I think part of that is 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:08.320 the toy designers focus on tormenting the parents, because I've 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.079 noticed this in contemporary toys as well. Um, where my 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.280 son has a few different lightsabers, and one of the 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.040 ones he has it seems to at random either do 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.640 lightsaber noises or play part of the Star Wars theme. 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.880 But it seems entirely unpredictable, so if the batteries are in, 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.280 if the device is on, and it seems also confusing 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.119 about if it's toggled on or not. Like you, you're 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.079 never sure. Um yeah, you it's a parent listening in 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.760 from the next room over. You don't know what to expect. 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.160 It just keeps you completely on edge. I think if 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.280 you want to calibrate a sound effects toy for maximum 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:48.000 parental torment, you should somewhat randomize the sounds that come 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.160 out and the sequence at which they come out, because 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.840 that we know that randomized rewards they tend to create 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.160 more addictive effects. The child will make the sound effects 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.000 more often for longer durations, and the parents will slow 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.080 lose their minds. And of course it's also in a 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.040 in a way ridiculous because when we were kids, but 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.639 also kids today perfectly capable of creating their own sound effects. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.840 You don't need the toy ray gun to go, pu pu, 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.880 You don't need the lightsaber to go because we can 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.120 do those sound effects. We do them all the time. Um. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.240 In fact, I think I read that that they had 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.960 to get on to you and McGregor in filming the 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.920 prequel films, because he kept making those sounds with his 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.280 mouth during the lightsaber battles. Yeah, I read that somewhere. 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:33.960 I don't know if that's true, but it's it's it's 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.640 wonderful either way. So he was like Anakin, I have 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:43.080 the high ground. M yep, I think so. But I 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.520 guess this all comes up because today you wanted to 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.960 talk about toy guns, which I thought was a very 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.520 interesting topic. Yeah. And in a way, this is a 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:54.040 holiday episode because the holidays are about toys under the trees, right, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.720 and the holidays at their best or about imaginative escapes, 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.440 and um, you know, I know in my own experience 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.720 raising an eight year old, it's it's proven impossible to 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.480 ignore the specter of the gun. Um. You know, it's 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.160 it's everywhere, it was, and it was, you know, in 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.040 our upbringing. So I thought it would be good to 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.960 look at some of the sort of broad studies and 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:21.000 meta analyzes that that look at the idea of toy guns, 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.040 because I mean, first and foremost, we have to recognize 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.680 that that actual guns are lethal instruments designed to kill 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.440 animals and or humans, depending on their exact design. Now, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.839 gun ownership itself is obviously a divisive topic, and one 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.240 can spend a lot of time discussing objections to the 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.279 legal use of such weapons. And there's there's too much 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.159 here for us to get into in this episode. But 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.000 I think we can mostly agree that improper use and 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.400 misuse of firearms is to be avoided, and in very 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.960 broad strokes, I'm thinking about guns used in homicides and suicides, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.680 guns used in mass shootings and accidental deaths, involving firearms, 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.720 especially those involving children, right, and of course the the 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.080 some implication there is that children should not be playing 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.799 with real guns, even though there's clearly a desire among 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:11.279 many children to enact types of play that involve guns 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.400 or involve surrogates for guns. So so there's sort of 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.520 a natural accommodation that happens there. It's like, well, kids 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.040 want to want to pretend to play with guns, Obviously 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.000 they should not be seeking out and handling real guns, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.680 so give them plastic toy guns. Yeah, and of course, 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.120 especially nowadays, but but I mean this was also president 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.440 in the minds of parents in the past too. You know, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.080 we ask ourselves, are we doing the right thing? Should 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:37.839 they have toy guns? Should we take all the toy 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.680 guns away? Um? So many questions that emerge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.000 I I wonder about this question myself. I mean I can, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.320 I can very much see both sides of it. I mean, 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.240 on one hand, I feel like, well, you know, conflict 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.240 play is a normal type of imaginative play. Uh. One 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.080 of the most common types of conflict that children are 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.400 going to imagine given the world we live in, is 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.440 conflict with guns. So they will want to act that 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.920 out and in a way that just seems like part 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.280 of childhood development. But then on the other hand, like 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.599 if you watch a child, like, you know, running around 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.480 pretending to shoot each other, You're like, oh my god, no, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.520 something horrible is happening here. This can't be allowed. Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.880 it gets increasingly complex the more you think about it, 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.839 you know, because especially since you're dealing in different worlds, 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.200 you know, generally speaking, like the child's world and their 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.960 exposure to guns is almost entirely within this room of fantasy, 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.479 you know, if you know, if if you're fortunate and uh, 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.880 and adults live in a broader world of understanding about 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.279 what guns are and what they can do, and you 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.600 don't want to just grab them and pull them completely 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.680 into your bubble. But but then also the question is 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:46.880 what should I leave them over there and their bubble, 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.640 Like yeah, yeah, it becomes this this this labyrinth, this 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:52.760 maze that you try and figure your way out of. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.000 So this is what we're gonna basically be talking about 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.640 in today's episode. But before we go go further, I 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.240 thought it might be helpful to go ahead and throw 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.160 out some stats and some numbers, um, just to um, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.359 you know, underlie the conversation here. So according to the 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.320 CDC stats for eighteen, the most recently made available as 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.280 of this recording, at the tail end of the United 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.680 States saw thirty eight thousand, three ninety deaths from firearm 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:23.160 violence in and that accounted for sevent of homicides and 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:29.440 of suicides uh those involved firearms. Additionally, Americans are ten 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.520 times more likely to be killed by guns than people 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.040 in other developed countries, according to a two thousand sixteen 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.600 study published in the American Journal of Medicine. Gun purchases 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.440 surged over the summer in twenty as did incidents of 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.080 gun violence we face. And on top of that, of course, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.400 we faced increased awareness of police violence against minorities, and, 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.480 as Craig Jackson pointed out on the conversation, despite lockdown 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.040 measures in the US, mass shootings in the US sharply rows. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.080 As of November twenty six, I believe there were five 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.480 hundred seventy eight mass shootings in the country, already ahead 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.280 of the total four hundred and seventeen from the year before. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.200 So we have to face the fact that if our 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.960 children are going to be running around pretending to play 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.080 with guns, you're holding that in your head with the 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.920 reality of all the terrible things that guns can do 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.640 and have been used to do, even just in recent memory. Yeah, 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:18.960 I mean, as as a parent, it is it is 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.320 at once terrifying and then terrifyingly commonplace to get that 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.040 that robot call from your school telling you that the 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.760 school has been locked down because of an incident in 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.520 the surrounding area, but that everything is cool, and you're 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.400 you know it, it's it's shocking, and then you're like, oh, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:36.599 everything's okay, And then you you ask yourself, should I 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.120 feel okay about this? Because I feel like I shouldn't. 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.480 But anyway, is as far as children and guns go. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.360 Some more stats here at two thousand sixteen study published 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.040 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that death 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.160 by gunshot with the second highest cause of death in 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.920 the United States in sixteen among children and adolescents ages 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.320 one through nineteen. Firearms were the second leading cause of 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.040 death in two thousand fourteen for American children between ages 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.400 of one and nineteen, average of eight kids shot per day. Um. 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.320 If you average that out over the calendar year, and 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.760 then also saw an uptick in unintentional shootings by children 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.680 by in March and April. And I believe commentators often 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.400 you know, link that to the fact that suddenly children 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.120 were at home more and it gave them greater opportunity 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.200 to come across guns in the household. Uh. And and 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.840 of course that opens up the door for misuse and 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:29.320 accidental usage of the weapon. I think sometimes people get 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.560 the feeling when when you're talking about things like certain 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.280 like safety precautions involving like gun storage, you know, should 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.880 you keep a gun stored in the home loaded, and 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:44.560 questions like that. Um, It's it's strange how people can 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:49.200 know what the risks of certain things are but still think, Uh, 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.320 those risks only apply like statistically to people in general, 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:57.160 and I am not like people in general, So I'm 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.720 okay like that that I the same logic that holds 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.400 true in general for people and households won't apply to 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.400 me or to my household. You know, I don't need 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.200 to worry about that kind of stuff. Isn't it like 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.959 weird how we can think like that? Yeah? Yeah, And 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.560 and plus I think we also color our estimation of 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.480 these numbers based on our own experiences, and are you 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:20.719 know the limited nature of our experiences, you know, like 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:22.960 I On on one hand, I can lie, I can 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.760 look back at my own past and say, well, uh, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:27.760 you know, I grew up with guns in the household, 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.920 and and I didn't, you know, have an accident with 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:32.680 a gun. I didn't. I don't. I never loaded a 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.280 gun on my own or anything like that. I I 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.320 don't think I knew anybody growing up that was engaged 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.360 in a firearm related accident or the accidental you know, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.320 discharge of a fire firearm in the house. But but 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.480 then again, that's just my limited experience, you know. And 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.920 you know, and then rationally, I'm not willing to to 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.840 to roll the dice for my own child based on 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.559 what I experienced, you know, right, I mean, but there 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.720 is definitely a natural endency to sort of think of 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.480 yourself as an exception to whatever the statistical rule is, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.960 and to elevate the importance of anecdotes in your own 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.559 life over the you know what the risks actually are exactly. Yeah, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:15.400 So as far as the stats go, we could we 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.760 could keep going on and on about this and torture 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.360 in the numbers, but and they're ultimately a number of 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.120 different directions. One could go into discussing these numbers, the causes, 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.199 the possible solutions. But one question that always comes up, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.720 sometimes in good faith, sometimes as the distraction, is what 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.800 about guns in childhood play? And and one of the 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.480 reasons again, like we've been discussing that this is so um, 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.160 you know, there's something we end up meditating on so much, 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.640 is that, you know, I found that guns and media 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.520 and subsequently in play are almost impossible to avoid because 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.080 while you can curate what your kids watch and and 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:49.560 ultimately this is even harder than I expected it to be. 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:52.120 They're still going to interact with other kids, and there's 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.480 always going to be a kid on the playground that 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.640 turns a stick into a weapon, turns a stick into 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:58.080 a gun or a sword or a spear or what 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.080 have you, but very often a gun. And even they 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.439 don't have access to sticks, they can make the finger 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.520 guns and blast away. Right. Yeah, again, I think this 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.400 comes down to like this difficult question that people have 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.920 over like how much is it reasonable to try to 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.839 control your child's experience of the world. Um, like you're 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.160 always going to be balancing that. I mean, when you 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.800 talked about media for some reason, the thing that immediately 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.400 popped into my head is like, what happens once a 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.880 child discovers YouTube? Like how do you do you just 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.160 like set a child loose on YouTube? Or like how 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:34.400 do if if not, how do you prevent that from happening? Uh? 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.079 I don't you know, it just seems like it's it's 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.040 mind boggling to me. Yeah, yeah, it is. You know 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.079 what we have. We can certainly go on about about 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.480 that on that topic as well, but but of course 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.600 sorry that that's ancillarity your main point, which is about play. Yeah, 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.920 I mean, I think it's absolutely clear. Probably everybody who's 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.000 been around kids for any amount of time or was 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.439 once a child themselves, probably remembers or has observed the 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:02.040 natural emergence of violent and inflict play among kids. It 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.160 doesn't seem like something Uh it's hard to rule this out, 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.560 but it doesn't seem like something that like parents have 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.600 to instruct their children how how to do it. Seems 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.839 like it just kind of comes naturally out of the 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.080 child brain that like, we need to enact some kind 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.040 of imaginative violent conflict. Yeah, and then the gun being 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:24.680 an inevitable part of the conflict media, they absorb it 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:26.640 just becomes a part of it, and it's a you know, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.240 you can try and sort of steer your children towards 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.600 things like lightsabers and ninja turtles, you know, but even 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.760 in those genres, a lot of guns, you know, there's 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.400 a lot of are those are very ultimately very shooty 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.040 properties as well. So you know, unless you you know, 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.480 just want your your you're just gonna feed your kid 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.520 pop patrol over and over again and never let then 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:47.080 move on to something else. Yeah, what do you do? 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.480 It's funny how many of these properties I can think 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:55.440 of several offhand. You know, Batman, uh, Star Wars whatever, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.719 have this sort of moral hierarchy of weapons selection where 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.880 the most morally virtuous characters never use guns. They will 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.160 use like hand to hand combat. They do still use 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.719 weapons of various types lightsabers and all that. But then 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.160 as you go down the the hierarchy, down the ladder 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.000 of moral virtue into more ambiguous and then ultimately evil characters, 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:23.280 the propensity for firearms and firearm analogs gets higher and higher. Yeah, 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.960 that is interesting, and and I I suppose I like that. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:28.920 There may be problems with it if I an analyze 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.480 it too much, but on the surface, I like that 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.160 that I that idea that the lightsaber is the civilized 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.120 weapon and the blaster is the uncivilized weapon. So I guess, 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:40.720 I guess it's complicated there because also the Sith lords 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.320 primarily use lightsabers, like the most evil of the most 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.760 evil also is shoe blasters and and will only you know, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:49.760 you can do a lot of damage with the lightsaber. 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.440 You can be a bad guy with just a laser sword. Yeah. 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.800 I have reservations at times when I am ambushed by 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.040 my my son with the lightsaber, because even though I'm 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.320 not being you know, shot at in all way, you know, 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:02.960 he is trying to dismember me. So but it's dismemberment 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.880 that comes from a place of love. Yeah, Yeah, um, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:08.840 and you know, well, I think we'll actually come back 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.320 to to some of that in a bit here, but 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.640 but let's go ahead and talk about just the topic 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.640 of aggressive play, because that's, you know, very broadly what 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.800 we're talking about here. Um, you know, getting out of 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.400 the media portion of this and getting more into like 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.640 what children are doing when they're engaging with their toys 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.920 and each other and their imagination. As Jeffrey Goldstein of 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.280 the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands pointed out in 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.080 Aggressive Toy Play published in and the Future of Play Theory, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:43.520 aggressive play includes mock fighting, general rough housing, and fantasy aggression. 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.840 And we can further think of imaginary battles and war 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.880 toys as being part of war play. Part quote. Aggressive 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.920 toys and war toys are those that children use in 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.560 play fighting and fantasy aggression, including but not limited to 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.440 toys that resemble what pens And naturally this covers a 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.600 great deal of territory. You know, an old timey you know, 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.360 silver toy, cowboy pistol. You know that there's a there's 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.240 a weapon, uh toy, a bright orange ray gun. It 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:14.320 looks like nothing you would actually use in a real 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.160 world combat. Scenario, same case, a tiny blaster and a 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.360 Lego Mini Mini figures hand yep that applies Lego blocks 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.840 formed roughly into the shape of a gun. The same thing, 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.480 stick finger guns, you name it. All of that kind 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.800 of falls under the same uh loose category here, So 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.400 basically like most of the toys I remember having as 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.400 a kid. That might be overstating it, but it is 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.880 weird also that I wonder how much of this has 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.280 changed generationally. I'm sure people were having this debate when 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.360 we were kids, But I just remember having lots and 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.520 lots of explicit weapon and even gun toys as a child, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.080 and all my friends having the same stuff. Yeah, and 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.440 I remember making guns like I would watch like a 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.240 James Bond film and I think it was what from 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:00.880 Russia with Love? And there's the whole thing we has, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.120 like a rifle that folds up in a suitcase. So 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.280 I somehow got my hands on an old suitcase and 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.760 I had like a pipe that I had in there, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.440 and like some sort of capsule that I was pretending 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:14.040 was the the bullet you know. Um, Yeah, it's just 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.720 it was so so easy to get excited about those things. Well, 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.000 I think you you should be proud of any child 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.440 who shows ingenuity of that kind. What did you also 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:27.200 make yourself a like a Robert Shaw garatt wire? Oh? Yeah, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.280 that that suitcase had so many interesting bits of spycraft 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.320 in it. But um, I can't remember what all I 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.480 had in it. You know, it was it was the 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:40.080 imagination was like it, So it wasn't too impressive. Okay. Now, 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.160 generally speaking, studies have shown and continue to show that 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.760 that boys display more aggressive play than girls and their 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.920 various theorized reasons here, But it doesn't mean that it's 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.119 only boys by any stretch. The sex differences, though, seem 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.240 to have been observed across cultures. Uh. Now, given you know, 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.840 the cultural landscape of everything, I imagine this is an 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.439 area where we're going to continue to see analysis of 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.240 where we are with this and where we're going with this. Uh, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.560 you know, because there were a number of of sort 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.239 of loose ends I could have gone after when I 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.000 was looking at this, and originally, like, there's a whole 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:19.080 thing about like gender marketing in a gun weapons, you know, 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.840 particularly like in nerve toys. So there's a lot to 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.080 consider just in this category as well. But these seem 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:26.920 to be the trends that have played out over time, 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:29.280 and these are the trends that are often, uh at 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.760 least brought up in any kind of study regarding aggressive 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:36.359 play and gun play among children. Yeah, it seems pretty 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.000 clear that the aggressive play is uh present regardless of gender, 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.080 but it's more common in boys. Now. Goldstein pointed out 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.640 that warplay usually begins around age two and occurs once 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:49.520 a week with at least a couple of other kids. 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:51.920 I love this detail because I know what he's saying. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.680 But it also makes me imagine like a child keeping 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.680 a schedule and you're like, hey, do you wanna do 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.760 you want to watch a movie this Wednesday? As I'm sorry, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.560 I got warplay? Um, you know Keith and Toby are 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.360 are are already, Um, yes, is for that, so I'm 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.640 gonna have to pass. I like that, And it also 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:12.480 makes me think of, um, remembering back to my own childhood, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:18.560 how thin sometimes the boundary was between something that was 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:23.199 explicitly war or violence play and something that was a 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:28.560 thinly disguised or leaky surrogate for war violence play, some 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.760 kind of game that was like almost a war that 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.840 would you'd easily sort of like slip into it being 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.560 a violent war. Do you know what I mean? Oh? Yeah, yeah, 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.919 I mean I think one of the most you know, 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.320 obvious examples, of course, sports itself. I mean, you know, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.359 several times away, like what every day you would go 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.399 to pe class, and you know, maybe you're square dancing 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.000 or doing that thing with the with the parachute where 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.320 you dance around in circles with it. But a lot 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.440 of times you're playing games, sports games, and those are 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.600 essentially wars. Those are wars that are that are carried 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.400 out in a mostly nonviolent way with some rule limitations, 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:08.920 but they kind of fulfill the same role that warfare plays. Um. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:10.680 And then you know, on on top of that, you've 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.000 got all sorts of things, all sorts of games. I mean, 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.000 you could, if you really wanted to stretch things, you 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:16.919 could say a game of cards as a war, I 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.919 mean any kind of competition, right, yeah, And but I 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.719 mean in a in a closer literal sense, I mean, 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.040 I remember a lot of the games we came up 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:26.920 with as a child, when you're not playing like a 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.160 pre created game that has its own rules and all 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.119 that external to you, but you're doing some kind of 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:34.560 Calvin Ball thing. When kids do all the time that 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.760 you come up with some original game in your head 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:38.920 and you play with your friends. A lot of those 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.919 games I recall, we're basically just like half a step 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.639 removed from being a cage match. You know. It's like 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.600 it's a game that maybe involves a ball or you know, 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.360 some kind of abstract item or rules in some way, 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:56.639 but it could easily just devolve into a battle royale. Yeah. Well, 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:58.040 I guess a part of it is when you see 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:59.720 kids play, A lot of it comes down to this 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.960 sort improv that they're doing. They're all bringing a certain 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.480 energy and certain ideas to what they're playing and how 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.720 they're playing. And so you know, the right combination of 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.600 kids might be just concerned with building a house for 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.560 a mouse or doing an archaeological dig in the dirt. 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:16.840 But then there's gonna be a kid that comes up 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:18.959 and he's gonna bring the finger gun, you know, kind 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.240 of like a Michael Scott in the office in every 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.240 improv scene pretends to have a gun. Well, that scene 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.400 in the Office highlights a great thing about about play actually, 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.359 which is that you know, occasionally in an improv scene, 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.280 if somebody were to bring a gun into the scene 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.560 that would be fun and interesting and it would liven 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.320 things up and oh, what are we gonna do now? 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.200 But the problem comes because he introduces a gun into 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.600 every improv skit. And I think the same thing could 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.159 probably be said of play, Like, you know, it's normal 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.440 for children to enact imaginative conflict play, but when when 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:55.520 some kid wants to turn everything into an imagine violent conflict, 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.800 then it's like, Okay, that's not fun anymore. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.800 And then I don't remember it was explicitly stated or 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.359 if it was even implied, but I'm looking back on it, 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.400 I kind of feel like it was the same gun 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:09.760 scenario that he would bring, which also ties into some 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:11.879 of the points that are made in one of the 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:20.520 sources we looked at for this episode. So anyway, the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.480 big question here is not whether kids engage in aggressive play, 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.359 because they do, but it's rather about what is it 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.199 for and indeed, if it actually leads to more aggressive behavior. 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.359 And Goldsteam points to a trio of studies from the 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.680 ninety nines that that indicate that war games and video 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.919 games with violent themes increase the frequency and duration of 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:45.240 aggressive play, but the connection to actually aggressive behavior that 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.160 that's a different story that's ultimately a lot more complicated. Yeah, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.040 I guess this is the big question that a lot 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:52.320 of parents are probably worried about, Like if they watched 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:56.359 their kids doing doing aggressive play. What they're worried about 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.320 often is does this mean my child is going to 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.919 grow up to be a violent person. Yeah, And we 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:05.760 may think about this sometimes as adults when we play 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:09.240 our video games and and whatnot, especially if you're playing 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:11.200 a game that actually gives you like a kill count, 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.240 which could be a little sobering at times, and you're like, 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.280 oh my god, I sure did pretend shoot a lot 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.240 of people, am I? Okay? So anyway, that that's the 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:22.240 whole area we'll have to consider coming back to in 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:24.879 the future. But uh, I've got a good place to 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:28.000 go from here would be to travel back to ninety 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:32.960 seven and consider something that we know as the weapons effect. 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:38.280 So back in sixty seven, American social psychologist Leonard Berkowitz 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:42.600 and co author Anthony Lapage conducted a randomized study using 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:47.159 male college students. Now, each test involved two participants, but 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.760 one of these participants was always a secret accompliments accomplice 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:54.200 of the testers, so you only really have one random 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:58.400 individual one you know, purer college student that's in here, 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.840 in is being test it. The other person is just 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:03.959 is actually a part of the study, but pretending to 0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:07.760 be a test subject. So the subject in the accomplice 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:11.359 would take turns engaging in a mundane task, such as 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:15.240 the example that that I saw listed was listing ideas 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:20.800 to help sell used cars, and the first point a 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:23.320 gun at the buyer. No, no, no, the gun. The 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:27.000 gun comes in later. But but so the the actual 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:28.879 assignment here has nothing to do with guns. It's just 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:32.919 something mundane and you know, and ultimately I think non violent. 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:37.280 So first the accomplice gives the subject feedback on their work. 0:24:37.840 --> 0:24:41.280 And they give this feedback with between zero and ten 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:47.880 small electric shocks. Okay, okay, yeah, so that's again that's 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:51.919 the fake test subject shocking the actual test subject. But 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:55.040 then it's the actual test subjects turn to shock back. 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:59.040 Uh So this was the basic test for regression. How 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:02.720 many shocks would they retaliate with? How aggressive would they be? 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:08.760 And here's where the weapon came into play. Sometimes there 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:10.560 was a gun or guns on the table. I believe 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:13.719 it was a shotgun and a revolver um, and in 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:16.760 other cases, they would have a badminton racket and some shuttlecocks, 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:18.639 and there was also a control group that had no 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:21.800 items on the table at all. The actual subjects were 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:24.480 told that these were just part of another study and 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:29.080 we're just items to be ignored, which of course sounds 0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:32.879 kind of comical in and of itself. Um but but 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:35.000 but I mean the big thing is, it's impossible to 0:25:35.040 --> 0:25:37.560 ignore those weapons, right, I mean, there's a there's it's 0:25:37.600 --> 0:25:40.440 it's kind of impossible to ignore anything that is there 0:25:40.440 --> 0:25:43.840 on the table, like the shuttle cocks and the badminton racket, 0:25:43.840 --> 0:25:46.560 but especially the pistol and the shotgun. It's kind of 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:49.160 reminds me of in Madmen were for a long time, 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:52.240 Pete Campbell just carries a rifle around the office and 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:54.920 no one seems to think it's that big a deal. 0:25:55.480 --> 0:25:59.560 Oh man, I forgot about that episode, but that comes 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:04.439 up and said pull episodes. It's like a fixture. Huh. So, 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:07.360 as you can imagine the idea, here is what happens. 0:26:07.400 --> 0:26:10.960 How does just the mere sight of weapons, the mere 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:13.879 sight of some guns, how does that affect, uh, the 0:26:13.920 --> 0:26:17.560 individual's aggressive response? And so this is this is what 0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:21.359 the results were provoked participants who saw the guns were 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:25.000 more aggressive than the other participants, and the authors called 0:26:25.000 --> 0:26:27.520 this the weapons effect, and they argued that it meant 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:29.960 that the mere sight of a gun made us more aggressive, 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:33.800 not more aggressive without provocation, minds you, and certainly not 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:36.119 so provoked that they say, grab the gun or anything 0:26:36.160 --> 0:26:39.359 like that, but more aggressive within the boundaries of the 0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:42.719 study parameters. Okay, so what they're claiming is to have 0:26:42.760 --> 0:26:44.800 found that when you see the gun, it's not that 0:26:44.880 --> 0:26:47.280 you pick up the gun and kill somebody with it, 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:48.880 but when you see the gun, it's going to make 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:53.000 you make your shape, your cognition to give more shocks 0:26:53.040 --> 0:26:55.960 to this other guy and to be more vengeful. Right, 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:57.439 And you know, this kind of lines up with a 0:26:57.480 --> 0:26:59.840 lot of studies that we've that have been conducted in 0:27:00.080 --> 0:27:01.919 that we've looked at in the past about just how 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:06.439 random or even you know, not so random things in 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:10.000 our environment, symbols, etcetera, can affect the way that we 0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:13.679 think and behave, you know, be it religious iconography, or 0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:16.840 eyes staring at us from something. You know that that 0:27:16.960 --> 0:27:19.000 all all of these things, all all of this is 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:24.080 stimuli that can affect the manifestation of the mind. Oh yeah, 0:27:24.119 --> 0:27:26.600 So if, for example, you take that study that found 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:29.760 that people might be more generous in putting money into 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:32.280 like a collection box if there are some eyes painted 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:35.280 on it, or or less likely to steal money from it. 0:27:35.320 --> 0:27:37.560 If there's some eyes painted on it. What's the effect 0:27:37.600 --> 0:27:41.679 if there's just a gun sitting beside it? Yeah, or 0:27:41.720 --> 0:27:44.040 the collection play, yeah, has a gun? Like what if 0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:48.800 the what if the santa that is collecting coins with 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:51.400 the bell, what if he also is packing a heat 0:27:51.480 --> 0:27:53.560 I don't know, I don't know if you saw this, 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:56.800 but actually the one of the authors here, Leonard Burkwitz, 0:27:56.840 --> 0:28:00.040 is associated with an anti metaboli that he used to 0:28:00.560 --> 0:28:04.320 communicate the results that he said he found here, and 0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:08.680 anti metaboli was yes, it's true that the finger pulls 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:13.280 the trigger, but sometimes the trigger also pulls the finger. Yes, yeah, 0:28:13.400 --> 0:28:15.159 that's that's a that's a big one, and that of 0:28:15.200 --> 0:28:17.800 course has been been echoed a lot, because as you 0:28:17.840 --> 0:28:21.119 can well imagine, um, this is at there's an argument 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:24.000 that definitely plays into the various discussions that have taken 0:28:24.000 --> 0:28:30.360 place over the subsequent decades regarding weapons in society. Now, 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:33.200 I will say that one thing we know that this 0:28:33.280 --> 0:28:36.000 is basically going to be one example of a study 0:28:36.040 --> 0:28:39.040 on what's known as priming, right, the priming effects of 0:28:39.080 --> 0:28:42.920 like seeing objects and how that affects cognition. And there 0:28:42.960 --> 0:28:45.560 are a lot of questions about priming studies, I mean, UH, 0:28:45.880 --> 0:28:48.320 and some priming effects really do seem to hold up 0:28:48.400 --> 0:28:51.680 under subsequent testing. Some priming effects that people have found 0:28:52.120 --> 0:28:55.080 UH in studies of decades past have really been undermined 0:28:55.120 --> 0:28:59.200 by like failed replication attempts or later analyzes. So part 0:28:59.200 --> 0:29:02.600 of the question would be, how does this UH supposed 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:06.160 priming effects discovered in the sixties hold up under scrutiny 0:29:06.200 --> 0:29:09.960 and under review of all the subsequent research. Yeah, exactly, 0:29:10.000 --> 0:29:13.040 because it's one thing for one study to observe this 0:29:13.280 --> 0:29:15.640 back in the late sixties, but how does it hold 0:29:15.680 --> 0:29:19.720 up over time and with different experiments, etcetera. So I 0:29:19.760 --> 0:29:24.440 was looking at effects of weapons on aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, 0:29:24.480 --> 0:29:28.840 hostile appraisals, and aggressive behavior a meta analytic review of 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:32.160 the weapons effect UH literature. And this was by Benjamin 0:29:32.200 --> 0:29:36.240 at All, published in two thousand eighteen in the Personality 0:29:36.280 --> 0:29:39.920 and Social Psychology Review. In it, as the title implies, 0:29:39.960 --> 0:29:42.560 the authors looked at various later experiments into the so 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:45.880 called weapons effect. Uh. Yeah, because basically, there have been 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:50.200 numerous versions of this experiment over the last fifty three years. 0:29:50.560 --> 0:29:53.440 And this isn't even the first meta analysis all of them. 0:29:53.480 --> 0:29:56.320 It's just one of the it's either the most recent 0:29:56.400 --> 0:29:57.880 or the most recent one that turned up when I 0:29:57.920 --> 0:30:01.440 was looking around. But these were big takeaways that Benjamin 0:30:01.480 --> 0:30:05.320 at all Um put out there. First of all, weapons 0:30:05.480 --> 0:30:10.000 do appear to increase aggressive thoughts and hostile appraisals, although 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:14.040 their effect on aggressive behavior is currently less clear. Uh, 0:30:14.280 --> 0:30:17.320 that's a that's a direct quote from the paper. But 0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:19.720 they also say that the relationship to that for the 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:23.080 relationship to become more clear, we need quote higher powered 0:30:23.120 --> 0:30:29.440 studies with provocation manipulation, provocation manipulation. The hairs on the 0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:31.479 back of my next stand up at those two words. 0:30:32.720 --> 0:30:34.520 But yeah, So what they're saying is that when you 0:30:34.560 --> 0:30:36.800 look at all of these studies over the years and 0:30:36.840 --> 0:30:39.000 you do a meta analysis, meaning you sort of like 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:42.840 average all the results together and look at them in total, Uh, 0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:47.160 it does seem pretty clear that the seeing weapons around, 0:30:47.160 --> 0:30:50.840 the presence of weapons or weapon imagery, it makes people's 0:30:51.000 --> 0:30:56.800 thoughts more aggressive and it increases people's tendency to perceive hostility, 0:30:57.200 --> 0:31:00.360 but there's not necessarily evidence that it makes them act 0:31:00.520 --> 0:31:04.200 more aggressive in an external way. Right. Yeah, it's an 0:31:04.200 --> 0:31:07.240 area whereas this is often the case, more more research 0:31:07.320 --> 0:31:10.480 is required. Yeah, And I gotta say, I think this 0:31:10.520 --> 0:31:13.680 is one realm where a meta analysis is very important 0:31:14.000 --> 0:31:16.240 rather than just looking at one study here or there. 0:31:16.280 --> 0:31:18.760 Because I don't have any way to prove this, but 0:31:19.440 --> 0:31:22.880 I have a pretty strong gut feeling that, like guns, 0:31:22.920 --> 0:31:26.480 psychology research is an area of research where there are 0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:29.360 probably some people messing around in this field with some 0:31:29.440 --> 0:31:32.120 kind of political acts to grind one way or another. 0:31:32.200 --> 0:31:34.760 And so you probably could get some individual studies that 0:31:34.800 --> 0:31:38.680 are less subjective than one would hope. Yeah. Yeah, And 0:31:38.680 --> 0:31:40.840 and likewise there's plenty of room for cherry picking from 0:31:40.880 --> 0:31:43.640 these studies as well, Like if you don't like the 0:31:43.680 --> 0:31:45.760 idea of the weapons effect, then yeah, you can definitely 0:31:45.800 --> 0:31:49.480 find some some studies that fail to replicate it, right uh. 0:31:49.520 --> 0:31:52.600 And and meta analysis is helpful for multiple reasons. There 0:31:52.920 --> 0:31:54.840 was another thing that they looked into. One of the 0:31:54.840 --> 0:31:59.440 major factors tempering their findings here is a question of 0:31:59.520 --> 0:32:02.600 publication bias in the literature on the weapons effect. So 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:07.640 I'll briefly explain what they called the naive meta analysis, 0:32:07.640 --> 0:32:10.480 which basically just means you average together all the results 0:32:10.480 --> 0:32:13.160 of the studies they looked at without doing any like 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:16.720 correcting for potential biases and the results. You just take 0:32:16.720 --> 0:32:19.000 the results at face value and put them all together, 0:32:19.120 --> 0:32:21.720 look at them against one another, and see what you find. 0:32:21.920 --> 0:32:25.520 And they found that this naive mean definitely confirmed that 0:32:25.680 --> 0:32:30.960 merely quote seeing a weapon can increase aggressive thoughts, hostile appraisals, 0:32:30.960 --> 0:32:35.080 and aggressive behavior. But they also ran a meta analysis 0:32:35.160 --> 0:32:39.880 using techniques that are designed to detect signs of publication bias. 0:32:40.240 --> 0:32:42.680 Publication bias, of course, is not a problem just with 0:32:42.800 --> 0:32:46.240 this subject. It's a major problem affecting the quality of 0:32:46.240 --> 0:32:48.920 all kinds of scientific literature, I think, especially in the 0:32:48.960 --> 0:32:52.880 social sciences. And it basically goes like this, Studies that 0:32:53.000 --> 0:32:56.760 find a significant result are more likely to be published 0:32:57.000 --> 0:33:00.440 than studies that test for something and find no evidence, 0:33:00.480 --> 0:33:03.720 also known as a null result. And this is actually 0:33:03.760 --> 0:33:07.400 a problem because it leads to biases in the existing literature. 0:33:07.960 --> 0:33:12.880 If Alice doesn't experiment and finds some interesting hypothesis is confirmed, 0:33:13.320 --> 0:33:17.040 and then Bob doesn't experiment, that does not yield any 0:33:17.120 --> 0:33:20.320 kind of solid conclusion, and then Alice publishes and Bob 0:33:20.360 --> 0:33:23.600 does not this, and then this kind of keeps happening. 0:33:23.680 --> 0:33:26.320 This can give us an inaccurate picture when we try 0:33:26.360 --> 0:33:29.840 to run a meta analysis on the existing literature. UH. 0:33:29.880 --> 0:33:33.880 And this publication disparity could also potentially pressure researchers to, 0:33:34.560 --> 0:33:38.440 uh perhaps unconsciously, probably unconsciously most of the time, lean 0:33:38.640 --> 0:33:43.960 into study designs and manipulations that would try to get 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:47.680 a significant result showing something something interesting that you can 0:33:47.760 --> 0:33:50.360 report apart from just saying like, yeah, we looked and 0:33:50.400 --> 0:33:54.080 we didn't find anything. And this is why it's important 0:33:54.120 --> 0:33:58.520 to publish and reward well executed studies that receive a 0:33:58.600 --> 0:34:01.959 null result. And I understand the difficulty with that, Like 0:34:02.040 --> 0:34:04.640 I try to remember to mention them on the show 0:34:04.680 --> 0:34:06.800 when I come across them, but I admit it's a 0:34:06.840 --> 0:34:09.960 lot harder to make a good podcast talking about a 0:34:10.000 --> 0:34:13.560 bunch of studies that just didn't find anything interesting. So, 0:34:13.640 --> 0:34:16.759 you know, it's definitely something that modern science is struggling with. 0:34:16.800 --> 0:34:19.360 But it's also a good thing that researchers are aware 0:34:19.400 --> 0:34:21.480 of it, looking out for it and trying to come 0:34:21.560 --> 0:34:24.799 up with ways of detecting the bias when it occurs. 0:34:25.280 --> 0:34:28.839 But anyway, with regards to this particular literature, what what 0:34:28.920 --> 0:34:32.280 did the researchers find? How how does publication bias affect 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:34.840 the weapons effect? Well, it looks like it does not 0:34:35.040 --> 0:34:38.680 erase it, but it does appear to reduce the magnitude 0:34:38.680 --> 0:34:41.279 of it and to affect some of the conditions in 0:34:41.320 --> 0:34:45.200 which it applies. So to read from their discussion section quote, 0:34:46.000 --> 0:34:48.840 the naive meta analysis showed that the weapons effect is 0:34:48.920 --> 0:34:52.480 quite robust. It occurred inside and outside the lab for 0:34:52.600 --> 0:34:57.080 many different kinds of weapons e g. Guns, knives, spears, swords, 0:34:57.160 --> 0:35:01.640 hand grenades, for real and toy weapon, for males and females, 0:35:01.880 --> 0:35:04.920 for college students and non students, and for people of 0:35:04.960 --> 0:35:09.120 all ages, regardless of whether they were provoked. For some distributions, 0:35:09.160 --> 0:35:11.840 the weapons effect was also robust to the influence of 0:35:11.840 --> 0:35:16.319 publication bias and or outliers. Yet for other distributions, the 0:35:16.360 --> 0:35:20.080 weapons effect was not robust. These phenomena. The results from 0:35:20.120 --> 0:35:23.319 the sensitivity analysis, and that's the the analysis they ran 0:35:23.400 --> 0:35:26.960 to look for publication bias, showed that a publication bias 0:35:27.040 --> 0:35:30.120 had a small to moderate impact on the cognitive and 0:35:30.160 --> 0:35:34.600 appraisal outcomes. Given the difficulty in triangulating around a likely 0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:38.560 true effect size for affective and behavioral outcomes, for instance, 0:35:38.800 --> 0:35:43.719 we recommend interpreting their mean estimates with considerable caution. So, 0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:45.959 as best I can tell from these results, it looks 0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:48.799 to me like the weapons effect is probably real on 0:35:48.920 --> 0:35:51.839 average with regards to cognition how it affects what we're 0:35:51.840 --> 0:35:55.000 thinking about, But the size of the effect maybe a 0:35:55.000 --> 0:35:59.319 good bit smaller than some studies have suggested. So so 0:35:59.360 --> 0:36:02.040 maybe a gun on the table makes your cognition a 0:36:02.080 --> 0:36:06.880 little more violent. Yeah, they also write that quote. Overall, 0:36:06.920 --> 0:36:09.719 the magnitude of the weapons effect may even be increasing 0:36:09.760 --> 0:36:11.919 over time, although that may be due to the fact 0:36:11.920 --> 0:36:14.719 that much of this research has focused on cognitive and 0:36:14.719 --> 0:36:19.440 appraisal outcomes since the nineteen nines. That's a really interesting observation. 0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:21.520 So so there are a couple of things here. It 0:36:21.520 --> 0:36:24.239 could be an artifact of just how the studies have 0:36:24.360 --> 0:36:27.640 evolved in their methodology and things like that. But if 0:36:27.680 --> 0:36:30.040 that is real, I wonder what would explain that If 0:36:30.080 --> 0:36:33.640 there's actually a more cognitive priming from the presence of 0:36:33.640 --> 0:36:36.440 weapons now than there were like fifty years ago, what 0:36:36.480 --> 0:36:40.719 would that mean, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure. Um you know, 0:36:41.200 --> 0:36:44.400 ultimately in the paper they acknowledge that that, yes, technically 0:36:44.480 --> 0:36:47.400 the the the adage is true, guns don't kill people. 0:36:47.560 --> 0:36:51.960 People kill people. But the research does indicate that guns 0:36:52.120 --> 0:36:56.000 are are not neutral stimuli. Right, So you can say, 0:36:56.000 --> 0:36:58.920 even even if it's not, even if the magnitude of 0:36:58.920 --> 0:37:01.479 the weapons effect is kind of in question, it does 0:37:01.520 --> 0:37:05.480 seem to be there these it's not neutral stimuli, right. 0:37:05.520 --> 0:37:07.360 And so I think this would be a counter to 0:37:07.400 --> 0:37:10.399 anybody who who wants to argue, like, oh, a gun 0:37:10.520 --> 0:37:13.480 is just a tool, you know, it's like whatever. No, 0:37:13.600 --> 0:37:15.239 I mean, like, if there's a gun in the room 0:37:15.280 --> 0:37:17.480 and people can see it, like their brains are going 0:37:17.560 --> 0:37:21.719 to start behaving somewhat differently, right, And and I think 0:37:21.719 --> 0:37:24.560 on on some level, I think most people realize that, like, 0:37:25.280 --> 0:37:26.600 isn't that one of the reasons you have the gun 0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:29.440 on the wall right for people to see it, or 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:30.960 in the back of the truck or what have you. 0:37:31.400 --> 0:37:34.360 But again, the extent of which weapons actually influenced aggressive 0:37:34.360 --> 0:37:38.960 behavior that remains debated and in need of further study. UM. 0:37:39.160 --> 0:37:42.080 I mentioned already that you can find some cases where 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:46.080 they were not able to replicate the weapon's effect in studies. Um. 0:37:46.160 --> 0:37:48.759 And then there there's some other interesting cases as well, 0:37:49.840 --> 0:37:53.040 study from Click and mcelreth that even turned up a 0:37:53.080 --> 0:37:56.359 reverse weapons effect, which at least suggests that there there's 0:37:56.360 --> 0:37:58.640 a lot more going on than an ABC sort of 0:37:58.680 --> 0:38:01.879 reaction to seeing a weapon. Uh. But it's also worth 0:38:01.920 --> 0:38:04.520 noting that it's pretty much impossible to fully conduct a 0:38:04.600 --> 0:38:08.200 real world test of the weapons effect, as it could potentially, 0:38:08.480 --> 0:38:12.560 you know, concern aggressive behavior. Uh. But it's it's still 0:38:12.600 --> 0:38:16.520 an ofsential stopping point in considering such topics as gun control, 0:38:16.560 --> 0:38:19.799 of violent media, and toy guns. Yeah, totally. I mean, 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:22.840 I think this is a very interesting and fruitful realm 0:38:22.840 --> 0:38:26.719 of research. So yeah, more more on gun psychology. Absolutely. 0:38:27.120 --> 0:38:30.400 It certainly made me think more about how many you know, 0:38:30.520 --> 0:38:34.600 manifestations of the gun I encounter in just an average day. 0:38:35.239 --> 0:38:37.960 You know, like all my hobbies seem to in some 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:40.799 at some level or another involve the gun. Like I'm 0:38:40.800 --> 0:38:43.840 painting these little miniatures, and and yeah, there's like I 0:38:43.880 --> 0:38:45.560 was just I was counting the other day while I 0:38:45.560 --> 0:38:47.319 was at my laptop. My painting stuff was on a 0:38:47.320 --> 0:38:51.680 tray next at my laptop, and I counted like I think, uh, 0:38:52.440 --> 0:38:57.480 counting both physical models and illustrations. In some instructions, there 0:38:57.520 --> 0:39:01.240 were like two lightsabers and something like fifteen total blaster weapons, 0:39:01.719 --> 0:39:04.279 you know. And then like if I'm playing a video game, 0:39:04.320 --> 0:39:06.759 there's often some sort of a blasting weapon or a gun. 0:39:06.920 --> 0:39:08.880 If I'm reading a book, there's often some sort of 0:39:08.920 --> 0:39:11.239 conflict at the heart of it. You know, it's often 0:39:11.280 --> 0:39:14.400 going to have laser guns or some weapons going to 0:39:14.440 --> 0:39:16.080 show up at some point or another, or it's gonna 0:39:16.120 --> 0:39:19.320 be swords and whatnot, and even magic wands and wizard 0:39:19.360 --> 0:39:22.560 spells or ultimately some version of the weapon. Well, yeah, 0:39:22.560 --> 0:39:24.640 I mean this comes back to something I was talking 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:26.680 about at the beginning, which is that when we let 0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:29.840 our imaginations run wild. I mean, when we play, whether 0:39:29.880 --> 0:39:32.480 that's as children or adults, and you know, whatever the 0:39:32.760 --> 0:39:36.680 adult uh mental operations are that we call play, a 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:39.200 lot of what we're gonna be doing is imagining potential 0:39:39.320 --> 0:39:42.880 or hypothetical conflicts. And those don't have to be violent conflicts. 0:39:42.920 --> 0:39:48.160 You sometimes people imagine arguments, people imagine you know, political 0:39:48.200 --> 0:39:51.040 squabbles and all that, but almost every good story is 0:39:51.080 --> 0:39:53.560 about conflict of some kind. And one of the major 0:39:53.600 --> 0:39:57.719 types of conflict is violent, deadly conflict. Yeah, just to 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:00.279 drive this home, I'm recording in a closet as usual. Well, 0:40:00.360 --> 0:40:04.960 and I just counted eleven weapons. Uh on on packaging 0:40:05.280 --> 0:40:08.120 or images or books. Uh you know that the only 0:40:08.120 --> 0:40:11.320 thing that's not not a weapon in an illustration that 0:40:11.560 --> 0:40:14.160 is I'm looking around is a box, a boxed game 0:40:14.160 --> 0:40:18.240 of Ticket to Ride and a VHS of Jerry McGuire. 0:40:18.680 --> 0:40:21.320 And that's it. There are no guns in Jerry McGuire. 0:40:21.719 --> 0:40:27.879 It's it's it's the cinema of peace. That's true. Now, 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:30.480 there was one really strange thing that I was reading 0:40:30.520 --> 0:40:32.799 in the meta analysis you brought up a minute ago. 0:40:32.840 --> 0:40:35.040 This is yet another thing that could just be a 0:40:35.160 --> 0:40:39.040 sort of like artifact of the existing research that isn't 0:40:39.080 --> 0:40:41.920 really robust, doesn't actually mean anything, but it could be 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:44.960 a real discovery. And if it is, it's very intriguing 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:48.080 to me. So to read from their paper quote, one 0:40:48.200 --> 0:40:51.879 counterintuitive finding in our analyses concerned the comparison of real 0:40:51.960 --> 0:40:57.040 weapons and images of weapons. Specifically, the magnitude of the 0:40:57.120 --> 0:41:02.520 effect for images of weapons was larger than for real weapons. 0:41:02.960 --> 0:41:06.280 Although there is no particular theoretical reason why there should 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.400 be a difference between real weapons and images of weapons. 0:41:09.640 --> 0:41:13.319 The difference was significant in the naive meta analysis, and 0:41:13.400 --> 0:41:18.320 the difference remains significant after taking publication bias and potential 0:41:18.320 --> 0:41:23.560 outliers into consideration. Perhaps participants were more suspicious when they 0:41:23.600 --> 0:41:27.000 saw real weapons. I mean, that seems sensible to me. Yeah, 0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:30.040 uh so, maybe you're saying more so. I think the 0:41:30.080 --> 0:41:34.400 idea more suspicious is that people's genuine reactions were maybe 0:41:34.440 --> 0:41:37.279 tempered in an experiment where there's a real gun on 0:41:37.320 --> 0:41:41.560 the table because they feel like something's wrong here. You know, 0:41:41.640 --> 0:41:44.520 that I'm being provoked or like, you know that they 0:41:44.560 --> 0:41:48.200 detect the priming, they start to understand what the experiment 0:41:48.239 --> 0:41:52.239 is testing for which they shouldn't in a well designed experiment. Um, 0:41:52.280 --> 0:41:55.040 and that affects what they actually report in the end. 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:59.600 That's possibility. Another thing is just that, yeah, it emerges 0:41:59.640 --> 0:42:02.640 as some other strange artifact. But if that were a 0:42:02.680 --> 0:42:05.120 real effect, I would wonder what could explain that. I mean, 0:42:05.160 --> 0:42:09.640 would people actually be more primed to think host to 0:42:09.640 --> 0:42:14.480 to like perceive hostility, and to think aggressive and violent 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:16.839 thoughts when they look at a picture of a gun 0:42:17.000 --> 0:42:19.280 rather than when when they see a physical gun sitting 0:42:19.320 --> 0:42:21.480 in front of them. Yeah, I mean I guess. I mean, 0:42:21.480 --> 0:42:23.719 the the obvious answer that comes to mind that might 0:42:23.719 --> 0:42:26.160 not actually line up all that well is just you know, 0:42:26.239 --> 0:42:28.120 it is it is reality. It is a thing that 0:42:28.160 --> 0:42:30.399 I can pick up and it will become it would 0:42:30.440 --> 0:42:33.000 become a part of my body schema, you know. And 0:42:33.040 --> 0:42:36.200 it is also something that can can I have used 0:42:37.080 --> 0:42:38.400 the right way or the wrong way, depending on how 0:42:38.440 --> 0:42:40.560 you want to look at it. Uh, could hurt me, 0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:43.080 whereas the picture of the gun is not going to 0:42:43.200 --> 0:42:47.120 hurt me. So you're saying that maybe the picture what's 0:42:47.160 --> 0:42:48.799 the logic there? You're saying, maybe the picture of the 0:42:48.800 --> 0:42:51.360 gun is just like would give you more freedom to 0:42:51.560 --> 0:42:55.840 explore dangerous aggressive thoughts because there's not actually something you 0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:59.000 need to be cautious about in your environment. I don't know, 0:42:59.120 --> 0:43:00.760 like I said, I don't know if this this actually 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:05.799 has any any meat to it. Yeah, but uh yeah, 0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:07.919 I mean, you know, certainly we can we can sort 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:10.920 of bring in our own, um, you know, personal experience, 0:43:10.920 --> 0:43:12.759 like the difference between seeing a picture of a gun 0:43:12.840 --> 0:43:16.160 and seeing somebody, say with a gun. You know. But 0:43:16.760 --> 0:43:19.480 oh yeah, I guess now that I think about it, Okay, 0:43:19.520 --> 0:43:21.799 So I can imagine, like I watch a scene of 0:43:21.960 --> 0:43:24.840 violence in a movie and I can get like, I 0:43:24.840 --> 0:43:27.560 can get pumped up about it. I'm like, yeah, time 0:43:27.600 --> 0:43:30.320 to fight. If I were to watch the same scene 0:43:30.320 --> 0:43:34.000 of violence play out in physical reality, like on the street, 0:43:34.400 --> 0:43:36.040 I would be like, oh my god, I've got to 0:43:36.040 --> 0:43:40.520 get away from here. So, like maybe the physical reality 0:43:40.560 --> 0:43:45.920 of the weapon um produces a different a different cognitive response, 0:43:45.960 --> 0:43:48.560 because like when it's just an image, you're more likely 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:52.719 to start fantasizing about violence, and when it's a physical reality, 0:43:52.760 --> 0:43:57.279 you're more likely to respond with hesitation and caution. All that. Yeah, 0:44:03.880 --> 0:44:05.640 all right, well at this point, let's get back into 0:44:05.680 --> 0:44:08.880 the discussion of aggressive play versus aggressive behavior with children. 0:44:09.880 --> 0:44:12.719 A really great, great source that I enjoyed reading for 0:44:12.760 --> 0:44:15.759 this is an article that popped up on Slate and 0:44:16.800 --> 0:44:21.279 from Melinda Winner Moyer, a science journalist science author who 0:44:21.600 --> 0:44:24.319 I feel like you've probably if you've definitely encountered her 0:44:24.360 --> 0:44:26.279 work before. She's been published in a number of different 0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:29.359 major publications. She's written some books on parenting, and this 0:44:29.400 --> 0:44:32.160 particular article is titled It's Fine for kids to play 0:44:32.160 --> 0:44:35.120 with pretend guns, which I suppose that kind of gives 0:44:35.160 --> 0:44:37.560 away the overall answers that she presents in the article. 0:44:38.280 --> 0:44:39.799 But it's a great article, and it touches on some 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:43.319 of the key gun safety principles and modern parenting, you know, 0:44:43.480 --> 0:44:46.800 such as not only properly storing guns and AMMO separately 0:44:46.840 --> 0:44:49.960 in a household, but also inquiring about gun safety at 0:44:49.960 --> 0:44:52.239 any house that your child might be going over to. 0:44:52.880 --> 0:44:55.799 Uh and how uh. You know, parents have have been 0:44:55.840 --> 0:44:57.839 pushing to just sort of make this a regular and 0:44:57.880 --> 0:45:00.719 not weird part of our discourse where you know, as 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:02.399 as not weird as it can be, you know, it's 0:45:02.440 --> 0:45:06.640 just something you ask, something you inquire about. Um. And 0:45:06.719 --> 0:45:09.200 you know this, added with the reality that gun safety 0:45:09.280 --> 0:45:12.880 education is only so effective in preventing children from handling 0:45:12.960 --> 0:45:16.000 or playing with real firearms, you have given the opportunity, 0:45:16.680 --> 0:45:19.879 which which is interesting to note because again coming back 0:45:19.920 --> 0:45:22.480 to how we think about our own lives versus the statistics, 0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:25.239 it's easy to think, well, well, my child knows the 0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:28.439 difference between a real gun and a fake gun, or 0:45:28.560 --> 0:45:31.000 my child, I've gone over some of the safety tips, 0:45:31.040 --> 0:45:32.480 you know, maybe I've even a roll and roll the 0:45:32.520 --> 0:45:34.239 child in some sort of class. They're going to know 0:45:34.280 --> 0:45:37.800 how to be safe with a gun. But it doesn't 0:45:37.840 --> 0:45:42.120 look like the research actually lines up with this, um 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:44.400 and there have been some very recent studies on this 0:45:44.520 --> 0:45:48.279 to back it up. Study from Rutgers University found that 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:51.640 gun safety programs do not prevent children from handling firearms. 0:45:52.239 --> 0:45:55.320 And then there was also a presentation at the American 0:45:55.360 --> 0:45:59.239 Academy of Pediatrics there two thousand eighteen National Conference and 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:03.279 Exhibition UH that found that most children surveyed couldn't tell 0:46:03.560 --> 0:46:06.839 real guns from toy guns. Yeah, I was reading about 0:46:06.880 --> 0:46:10.640 that one. Actually, that's a and and here's a question 0:46:10.920 --> 0:46:14.160 came up in our children who see movie characters using 0:46:14.200 --> 0:46:17.480 guns more likely to use them. Well, this particular study 0:46:17.480 --> 0:46:20.960 published in UM Jam of Pediatrics found that children who 0:46:21.000 --> 0:46:25.040 watched a PG rated movie clip containing guns played with 0:46:25.200 --> 0:46:28.640 a disabled real gun longer and pulled the trigger more 0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:32.600 often than children who saw the same movie not containing guns. 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:36.080 Not super surprising. Kids love to act out scenes from 0:46:36.120 --> 0:46:38.880 movies that they've liked. Yeah, and I bring us up 0:46:38.880 --> 0:46:41.120 to that. I think it's all good information to have 0:46:41.160 --> 0:46:44.200 in your head regarding your expectations of even your own 0:46:44.200 --> 0:46:49.120 perfect child. You know, Um, this is just kids. Statistically 0:46:49.160 --> 0:46:52.080 based on these studies, now Alayer goes goes on from 0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:54.200 all this, the points out that you know, first of all, 0:46:54.239 --> 0:46:58.640 aggression play is of course normal and especially noted among boys. Uh. 0:46:58.680 --> 0:47:00.759 And and in in boys and among boys, you know, 0:47:01.080 --> 0:47:03.840 in individual boys, but then also when boys play together 0:47:04.680 --> 0:47:06.879 in two thousan In a two thousand thirteen study from 0:47:06.920 --> 0:47:11.760 Fair and Russ Early Education and Development is the publication, 0:47:11.840 --> 0:47:15.440 the researchers found that preschoolers who engaged in oral aggression 0:47:15.480 --> 0:47:18.359 play such as having one stuffed animal bite the hell 0:47:18.400 --> 0:47:21.959 out of another stuffed animal. Uh, these children were less 0:47:21.960 --> 0:47:25.200 aggressive in the classroom. And the speculation here is the 0:47:25.280 --> 0:47:29.160 more violence that kids incorporate into their pretend play, the 0:47:29.239 --> 0:47:33.120 more they may learn to control violent impulses in real 0:47:33.239 --> 0:47:37.040 life and control their own emotions. And uh and you've 0:47:37.040 --> 0:47:40.000 seen even stronger emphasis on all of this. Two thousand 0:47:40.080 --> 0:47:43.759 thirteen paper by Heart and Tannic published in Children Australia 0:47:44.080 --> 0:47:48.440 even speculated that we may be interfering with a child's social, emotional, physical, 0:47:48.480 --> 0:47:52.600 cognitive and communicative development if we try to prevent them 0:47:52.800 --> 0:47:55.880 from play fighting and engaging in this kind of like 0:47:55.960 --> 0:48:00.200 creative play aggression. Now, there's some caveats here that Air 0:48:00.280 --> 0:48:02.000 points out. First of all, if a child is actually 0:48:02.040 --> 0:48:04.680 hurting other kids during play fighting, then there may be 0:48:04.760 --> 0:48:07.000 some impulse control issues there. It might be something that 0:48:07.120 --> 0:48:11.200 requires further attention. It also might be of concern if 0:48:11.200 --> 0:48:15.359 there is no imagination involved in the process, if it is, 0:48:15.400 --> 0:48:17.640 as Moyer puts it, a case of a child simply 0:48:17.760 --> 0:48:20.480 hitting one toy with the other over and over again. 0:48:20.760 --> 0:48:23.960 So narrative ultimately seems to be important. Part of all 0:48:23.960 --> 0:48:27.400 of this also makes sense. Yeah, so the creation of 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:30.959 violent or war narrative seems to be key, Moyer says, 0:48:31.000 --> 0:48:34.800 because mirror imitation, let's say, recreating a key battle scene 0:48:34.800 --> 0:48:38.160 from Star Wars is not engaging in the sort of 0:48:38.200 --> 0:48:41.840 play that actually works out problems. And I have to 0:48:41.880 --> 0:48:44.360 say I found this pretty interesting, you know, from a 0:48:44.360 --> 0:48:47.560 personal standpoint, but also just looking at toys, because there 0:48:47.560 --> 0:48:49.920 are a lot of toys and play sets out there 0:48:49.960 --> 0:48:53.480 that that aim that that sell themselves on providing you 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:56.080 with the tools to just recreate pivotal scenes in a 0:48:56.080 --> 0:48:58.759 lot of movies. Um, it's certainly the case with say 0:48:58.800 --> 0:49:00.920 Star Wars and Lego for example. You know you'll find 0:49:00.960 --> 0:49:05.040 sets that are all about like key duels, key action scenes, 0:49:05.760 --> 0:49:09.400 but it may not be that wrote. Reproduction of key scenes, 0:49:09.440 --> 0:49:12.680 that's important, But the creation of different narratives, well, I 0:49:12.680 --> 0:49:15.520 gotta say, and unfortunately this is just anecdotal again, but 0:49:16.239 --> 0:49:18.399 you know, in my memory of childhood, there was a 0:49:18.400 --> 0:49:22.359 ton of recreating with toys and just out of pure 0:49:22.400 --> 0:49:27.000 imagination play in both cases just recreating scenes directly from movies, 0:49:27.080 --> 0:49:29.400 but also a lot of times I feel like that 0:49:29.840 --> 0:49:33.000 type of play would evolve. So you would start by 0:49:33.080 --> 0:49:36.400 recreating a scene in a movie with legos or with toys, 0:49:37.280 --> 0:49:40.480 and then it would turn into what happens next, and 0:49:40.520 --> 0:49:43.799 then from there you just sort of branch out. Yeah, yeah, 0:49:43.840 --> 0:49:46.080 I I definitely see this in my own son, Like 0:49:46.120 --> 0:49:49.480 I remember him building this, putting up a battle scene 0:49:49.480 --> 0:49:51.920 with legos and he was like, Dad, this is the 0:49:51.920 --> 0:49:54.359 second battle of Genosis, and I was like, all right, 0:49:54.480 --> 0:49:56.839 and uh, but then it it did evolved from there 0:49:56.880 --> 0:49:59.440 to where now it's it's a different battle scene every 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:01.520 time I go in into his room, and they're often 0:50:01.520 --> 0:50:04.120 these little side things he's set up where it's like 0:50:04.360 --> 0:50:08.080 Clone troopers camping and looking after an animal or some 0:50:08.200 --> 0:50:10.520 other like. It's it's kind of an interesting puzzle to 0:50:10.520 --> 0:50:13.800 try and put together the narratives that he's clearly playing 0:50:13.800 --> 0:50:16.120 out in all of these little scenes. Are they ever 0:50:16.200 --> 0:50:18.759 looking over a baby Yoda. We don't have a baby 0:50:18.840 --> 0:50:22.600 Yoda yet, so maybe maybe by by the time Christmas 0:50:22.680 --> 0:50:24.560 rolls around, they'll be a little baby Yoda Yoda for 0:50:24.560 --> 0:50:26.480 them to interact with. What do you think? What do 0:50:26.520 --> 0:50:28.560 you think the next Star Wars baby is going to be. 0:50:28.600 --> 0:50:31.520 So we've had baby Yoda, I'm thinking about baby Darth Maul. 0:50:31.840 --> 0:50:34.319 Can you get a baby Darth Maul? Well, yeah, you 0:50:34.360 --> 0:50:37.480 could definitely have a baby of his species. I mean 0:50:37.480 --> 0:50:39.399 on the Clone War series you had a baby hut 0:50:39.440 --> 0:50:43.920 you had a hutlet and that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, 0:50:43.920 --> 0:50:46.480 I guess I gotta watch this. Yeah. I said that 0:50:46.600 --> 0:50:49.359 a bunch of times on the show. Now, my son 0:50:49.480 --> 0:50:52.319 informs me that in some Star Wars lego show there's 0:50:52.360 --> 0:50:55.360 a baby Wampa that's super adorable as well. So I mean, really, 0:50:55.560 --> 0:50:57.640 you make a baby out of anything in the Star 0:50:57.640 --> 0:51:00.160 Wars universe versus going to be adorable. But you at 0:51:00.160 --> 0:51:02.320 that Wampa. It's cute. When it's a baby, it starts 0:51:02.360 --> 0:51:03.880 to grow up. You can't just flush it down the 0:51:03.880 --> 0:51:06.920 toilet like an alligator. Don't do that to alligators. By 0:51:06.920 --> 0:51:12.520 the way, don't buy baby alligators, but or baby wampath. Now, 0:51:12.600 --> 0:51:15.680 now this isn't to say that parents can't or shouldn't 0:51:15.800 --> 0:51:19.120 enter into this sort of thing, that they shouldn't interrupt 0:51:19.200 --> 0:51:21.880 or maybe not interrupt, but but at least, uh, you know, 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:25.880 converse with their child about these sort of holy experiments 0:51:25.880 --> 0:51:29.920 and conflict play. Um and Moyer sites Diane Levin, an 0:51:29.920 --> 0:51:33.560 early in education specialist at at Wheelock College in Boston 0:51:34.160 --> 0:51:37.080 UH and the author of the war play Dilemma. Levin 0:51:37.120 --> 0:51:39.520 says that you can you can ask follow up questions 0:51:39.600 --> 0:51:43.759 to statements about, say, killing bad guys, with questions like, well, 0:51:43.760 --> 0:51:45.839 what did the bad guy do? Is there anything else 0:51:45.880 --> 0:51:48.759 that can be done besides killing the bad guy? Uh? 0:51:48.800 --> 0:51:51.640 You know, there are conversations you can have about conflict, 0:51:51.680 --> 0:51:55.200 in the nature of conflict and how this imagined conflict 0:51:55.280 --> 0:51:58.400 lines up with real life. Plus they point out that 0:51:58.440 --> 0:52:01.920 trying to prevent things like unplay, you know, are likely 0:52:01.960 --> 0:52:05.160 to backfire anyway, making it more desirable, So it's best 0:52:05.200 --> 0:52:07.759 to engage in conversations about it, like it's better to 0:52:07.800 --> 0:52:09.719 have the conflict play is allowed, but it's something we 0:52:09.760 --> 0:52:12.560 can have conversations about. So that we can you know, 0:52:12.600 --> 0:52:16.520 you can have these these important conversations about how real 0:52:16.640 --> 0:52:20.439 conflict works and the ramifications of violence in the real world. Yeah, 0:52:20.480 --> 0:52:24.000 you don't want to just send the gun play underground. Yeah, now. 0:52:24.040 --> 0:52:26.200 I think it's also worth noting that some of this 0:52:26.400 --> 0:52:29.960 would seem to go far beyond anything specifically involving guns 0:52:29.960 --> 0:52:33.960 and weapons. For instance, a June study from the University 0:52:33.960 --> 0:52:37.960 of Cambridge found that children's children whose fathers make time 0:52:38.000 --> 0:52:40.319 to play with them from a very early age may 0:52:40.360 --> 0:52:44.160 find it easier to control their behavior and emotions as 0:52:44.200 --> 0:52:46.800 they grow up. And the key distinction here, and I 0:52:46.880 --> 0:52:49.040 think I think one worth pointing out for single parents 0:52:49.040 --> 0:52:51.680 and same the same sex parents is that it's not 0:52:51.920 --> 0:52:54.680 it's not about the you know, the gender of the father, etcetera. 0:52:54.680 --> 0:52:57.960 It's about a more physical play style and stuff like 0:52:58.040 --> 0:53:02.120 quote tickling, chasing and piggy act rides. But this studying 0:53:02.200 --> 0:53:04.680 question looked at forty years of research and found quote 0:53:04.719 --> 0:53:09.160 a consistent correlation between father child play and children's subsequent 0:53:09.200 --> 0:53:12.759 ability to control their feelings. So play more in the 0:53:12.840 --> 0:53:18.840 domain of rough housing maybe sometimes helps children understand understand 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:24.399 boundaries better and and control their their outbursts. And impulses. Yeah, 0:53:24.480 --> 0:53:26.279 and so like this is me, not the study, but 0:53:26.320 --> 0:53:28.799 I instantly think of the times when I've been kind 0:53:28.800 --> 0:53:31.719 of playing rough with the kiddo and I get kind 0:53:31.719 --> 0:53:34.640 of clocked, you know, or something ends up really hurting, 0:53:34.680 --> 0:53:36.760 Like like maybe that kind of thing is a part 0:53:37.000 --> 0:53:42.000 of of understanding like you know, restraint and the boundaries 0:53:42.000 --> 0:53:45.239 of physical aggression, etcetera. You find out what too rough 0:53:45.480 --> 0:53:50.080 is by by like going there with a responsible adult present, right, 0:53:50.719 --> 0:53:53.200 all right, well we're gonna go and close it out there. Um. 0:53:53.280 --> 0:53:55.839 You know, hopefully this gave everybody a little food for thought, 0:53:56.440 --> 0:53:58.480 and we would love to hear from everybody out there 0:53:58.480 --> 0:54:00.640 if you have any thoughts on what we discussed tire today, 0:54:00.880 --> 0:54:03.840 you know, especially in and around the holidays, when inevitably 0:54:03.840 --> 0:54:06.719 there's gonna there are going to be toy weapons under 0:54:06.760 --> 0:54:09.480 the tree. They might be human size, they might be 0:54:09.880 --> 0:54:12.480 very miniature. Uh they might be for grown ups, they 0:54:12.520 --> 0:54:14.200 might be for kids. But you know, what are we 0:54:14.239 --> 0:54:16.040 supposed to do with that? How are we supposed to 0:54:16.040 --> 0:54:18.120 to think about these things? Uh? So I thought it 0:54:18.120 --> 0:54:21.359 was a good a good episode to roll out this 0:54:21.400 --> 0:54:24.520 time of year. Oh man, what we didn't even get 0:54:24.560 --> 0:54:28.480 into toy weapons for adults, such as like what do 0:54:28.520 --> 0:54:31.239 you call it when like an adult person buys a 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:34.480 buys a sword. They're not planning on using it in battle. 0:54:34.560 --> 0:54:36.839 They just wanted to have it. Yeah, that you want 0:54:36.840 --> 0:54:39.880 to put it on the wall, which, of course you 0:54:39.920 --> 0:54:41.799 know if you if you think about the weapons effect, Yeah, 0:54:41.800 --> 0:54:43.839 that that means every time I walk into the living room, 0:54:44.719 --> 0:54:47.759 I'm gonna be touched by the weapons effect, right, Um, 0:54:47.800 --> 0:54:50.319 it's yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean then also, you're 0:54:50.400 --> 0:54:52.799 if you buy that sword to put on the wall, 0:54:52.920 --> 0:54:57.360 you are going to hold it at some point if you, um, 0:54:57.520 --> 0:55:01.120 you might film yourself on your phone doing tricks of it. Yeah, 0:55:01.160 --> 0:55:04.240 it's it's gonna happen. Um, if you have a rental 0:55:04.239 --> 0:55:06.680 house and you put on like Airbnb or something, and 0:55:06.719 --> 0:55:08.759 you have a sword on the wall, people who stay 0:55:08.800 --> 0:55:10.480 there are going to try and take the sword off 0:55:10.480 --> 0:55:13.120 the wall. It's it's they're they're gonna go for it. 0:55:13.360 --> 0:55:14.920 Even if it's fixed in place, it's gonna be back 0:55:14.960 --> 0:55:19.040 the sword, the stone bolt, that sucker down. Yeah, all right, 0:55:19.080 --> 0:55:21.560 we're gonna go and close it out then. Um. In 0:55:21.600 --> 0:55:23.280 the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes 0:55:23.320 --> 0:55:24.719 of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. You can find us 0:55:24.719 --> 0:55:27.400 wherever you get your podcast, wherever that happens to be. 0:55:27.600 --> 0:55:31.360 We just hope that you rate, review, and subscribe. 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