title: "It's time to take a stand": depicting crosshairs can indeed promote violence.
abstract: There is abundant evidence that people derive meaning from signs (Krippendorff, 1989 Design Issues 5 9-39) and that signs influence attitudes (Landau et al, 2010 Psychological Bulletin 136 1045 - 1067). We put to a test whether the use of crosshairs in a map can be viewed as representing violence. In a fictive scenario describing a plague of foxes, members of a Dutch household panel were confronted with a map that showed inflicted areas either by crosshairs or by neutral markers (plain circles). Respondents indicated the extent to which they favoured two solutions: killing-by-shooting or capturing-and-relocating. The results show that crosshairs indeed shape people's attitudes more towards the violent solution of shooting the foxes. Therefore, especially when used in heated public debates, the possibly violence-inducing effect of such visual metaphors should not be underestimated.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft, The Netherlands. j.p.l.schoormans@tudelft.nl
authors.forename: Jan P L
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Schoormans
authors.forename: Claus-Christian
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Carbon
authors.forename: Valentin
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gattol
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013561:Symbolism; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D014796:Visual Perception