{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T18:04:02Z","timestamp":1789581842649,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"National Academy of Sciences","issue":"38","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789516800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology","award":["ISSEP-2025-05"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ISSEP-2025-05"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.pnas.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Guns are more prevalent in academic spaces than ever before. Some policy makers have proposed that educators carry guns in schools as a means of self-defense and to protect students, and several states explicitly permit the possession of guns on college campuses. But the psychological consequences of being around guns are relatively unknown. In two preregistered experiments, we tested the hypothesis that being in the presence of a gun undermines cognitive control in a laboratory setting. In both experiments, college students completed a test of attention control [the Squared tasks; A. P. Burgoyne\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">et al.<\/jats:italic>\n                    ,\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.<\/jats:italic>\n                    <jats:bold>152<\/jats:bold>\n                    , 2369\u20132402 (2023)] in the presence of a (fake) gun or a stapler. In both Experiment 1 (\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N<\/jats:italic>\n                    = 290) and Experiment 2 (\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">N<\/jats:italic>\n                    = 338) participants in the gun condition scored worse in three of four analyses pertaining to total task performance. These findings suggest that the presence of guns may impair cognitive control and point to heretofore unrecognized potential implications of the \u201chardening\u201d of academic spaces.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2610948123","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]],"date-time":"2026-09-16T17:37:27Z","timestamp":1789580247000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Cognitive control in the presence of a gun"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"123","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0002-7795-6214","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kyle J.","family":"Silva","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01f5ytq51","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University","place":["College Station"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3527-5365","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Brandon J.","family":"Schmeichel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01f5ytq51","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University","place":["College Station"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"341","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_4_1_2","unstructured":"B. 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