When the perpetrator gets killed: Effects of observing the death of a handgun user in a televised public service announcement

This study evaluates the cognitive effects of an anti-handgun violence publ ic service announcement (PSA) on sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade student s (N = 294). Participants were randomly assigned to a treatment group, whic h viewed a PSA depicting the death of an aggressive handgun user, ora compa rison group, which viewed identical content except that the PSA showed no n egative consequence for the handgun user. Logistic regression analysis, adj usting for race and gender, revealed that the treatment group was more like ly to report negative expected outcomes for aggressively using a handgun an d lower behavioral intentions to aggressively use a handgun compared with t he comparison group. These findings suggest that observing handgun violence on television that depicts death as a negative physical consequence for th e perpetrator may produce lower handgun-encouraging beliefs compared with o bserving no consequence for the perpetrator-the norm for most televised vio lence today.