Improper weapons are a neglected category of harmful objects

Abstract

According to legislation, objects are typically classified as weapons if they are offensive per se (referred to here as proper) and if they are adapted for use as weapons or carried with the intent of causing injury (referred to here as improper), with specific regulations on their usage and possession in public spaces. However, little evidence exists on the validity of this distinction in psychology, despite a widespread recognition of the importance of psychological states and subjective perceptions in risk assessment. We conducted an online survey to evaluate hazard perceptions in relation to three dimensions (dangerousness, frequency of events, controllability) of three object categories: proper weapons, improper weapons, and everyday objects. The data from our 300 respondents reveal that the three categories of objects differ from one another on the three dimensions. Moreover, hazard perceptions differ between males and females for improper weapons but less so for proper weapons. These findings suggest that proper and improper weapons are two psychologically distinct categories, albeit with fuzzy boundaries. Investigations into their differential properties may thus help improve risk assessment in security contexts.

The label-feedback effect is influenced by target category in visual search

“…For each of the three categories, i.e. proper weapons, improper weapons, garments, ten target objects were chosen, which were a selection of the items included in Frugarello et al [ 48 ]. Measures of imagery concordance [ 19 , 22 ], familiarity and visual complexity for these targets (see S1 Table for details) were available from Frugarello et al [ 49 ], where an independent but comparable sample of participants answered the following questions [ 25 ]: "How much does the image you see match your idea of the object?…”

“…Two of them (proper weapons and garments) refer to well-defined standard categories, whereas the third (improper weapons) refers to a set of items whose primary function is different than that implied by their label. We recently documented the psychological reality of improper weapons [ 48 , 49 ], which include everyday tools that can be used as weapons or carried with the purpose to injure. The definition of improper weapons is derived from the classification of weapons applied within the Italian Penal System (in accordance with international standards; e.g., for the United Kingdom, see the Offensive Weapons Act and Criminal Justice Act; for the United States, see the Federal Switchblade Act and United States Code, Title 18) and includes, for example, sharp and blunt objects (e.g.…”

“…created with the purpose of causing harm) and everyday objects that do not have the intrinsic characteristic of causing harm (e.g. books, spoons) by a series of attributes (dangerousness, frequency of incidents in which these objects are involved, feeling of control, and familiarity), suggesting that it would be worth to consider improper weapons as a psychologically “autonomous” category [ 48 , 49 ]. Previous research on language-cued visual search considered neither this specific category nor ad hoc categories at large.…”

“…Garments, but not weapons, have been extensively used in other studies with basic-level category labels [ 14 , 15 , 17 , 18 , 20 – 23 ]. Given the differences in intrinsic properties [ 48 , 49 ] between proper and improper weapons, and between weapons and garments, we considered it particularly informative to evaluate each of the three categories separately, for an additional characterization of the reported effects.…”

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions of Risk and Crisis Management in Universities

“…or not (Kirytopoulos, 2021), either as a function of (i) the probability of an undesirable event occurring or (ii) the severity of the consequences that may arise from this event in terms of the realization of goals or even the well-being and the very existence of individuals and organizations (Frugarello et al, 2022;Heath, 1998;Saiti & Saitis, 2022). The risks originate either from natural causes such as fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc., or from man-made causes such as negligence, accidents, acts of terrorism, social unrest, and failures in the functionality of buildings.…”