{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]],"date-time":"2025-10-17T18:12:01Z","timestamp":1760724721973,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":17,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]],"date-time":"2025-10-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1760659200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Error Management Theory (EMT) hypothesizes that humans are functionally biased to err on the side of the least costly mistake when making judgments under uncertainty. Applying EMT to emotion perception, previous studies found that people perceive individuals holding everyday objects with potentially lethal affordances to be both higher in state anger and more anger-prone, relative to individuals holding control objects. Here, we conduct a direct replication of one such study examining these effects [13] and exploratorily test whether friends of an individual possessing a potentially lethal tool are also perceived as angrier\u2014and hence more dangerous\u2014in a \u201creverse-halo\u201d effect. Participants (<jats:italic>N<\/jats:italic> = 476) were presented an image of an individual depicted as an avid cook and either holding or near a conventional kitchen knife, then asked to rate their emotional states and trait dispositions. Participants were next presented with an image of a second individual framed as a close friend of the cooking enthusiast and asked to assess their emotional states and dispositions. The results replicated prior findings that individuals depicted holding everyday objects with incidentally lethal affordances are perceived as angrier, more prone to anger, and more socially unpleasant. However, we did not find evidence for a \u201creverse-halo\u201d effect extending to friends. Instead, all of the state and trait emotion ratings of the two individuals were significantly correlated, consistent with an inference (orthogonal to error management motivations) of homophilic similarity in the affective profiles of friends. These results are discussed as they inform prior EMT research and motivate further study of the determinants of emotion perception.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0326446","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]],"date-time":"2025-10-17T17:54:03Z","timestamp":1760723643000},"page":"e0326446","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Possessing potential weapons (still) heightens anger perception: Replicating and extending a test of error management theory"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5068-0740","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Cody","family":"Moser","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Richard","family":"Ellk","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ayonna","family":"Jones","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Colin","family":"Holbrook","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]]},"reference":[{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0326446.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"47","DOI":"10.1207\/s15327957pspr1001_3","article-title":"The paranoid optimist: an integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases","volume":"10","author":"MG Haselton","year":"2006","journal-title":"Pers Soc Psychol Rev."},{"key":"pone.0326446.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Haselton MG, Galperin A. Error management and the evolution of cognitive bias. In: Social thinking and interpersonal behavior. Psychology Press; 2013. p. 45\u201363.","DOI":"10.4324\/9780203139677-10"},{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0326446.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"358","DOI":"10.1016\/j.evolhumbehav.2013.06.003","article-title":"Seeing storms behind the clouds: biases in the attribution of anger","volume":"34","author":"A Galperin","year":"2013","journal-title":"Evolution and Human Behavior."},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0326446.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.evolhumbehav.2022.11.003","article-title":"Beware the foe who feels no pain: associations between relative formidability and pain sensitivity in three U.S. online studies","volume":"44","author":"DMT Fessler","year":"2023","journal-title":"Evolution and Human Behavior."},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0326446.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"347","DOI":"10.1177\/1088868317725419","article-title":"Effects of weapons on aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, hostile appraisals, and aggressive behavior: a meta-analytic review of the weapons effect literature","volume":"22","author":"Jr Benjamin AJ","year":"2018","journal-title":"Pers Soc Psychol Rev."},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0326446.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"193","DOI":"10.1177\/0956797616678188","article-title":"Ensemble perception of dynamic emotional groups","volume":"28","author":"E Elias","year":"2017","journal-title":"Psychol Sci."},{"issue":"9","key":"pone.0326446.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1870","DOI":"10.1037\/xge0001025","article-title":"Anger bias in the evaluation of crowds","volume":"150","author":"D Mihalache","year":"2021","journal-title":"J Exp Psychol Gen."},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0326446.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"700","DOI":"10.1080\/02699931.2010.495881","article-title":"Attentional biases using the body in the crowd task: are angry body postures detected more rapidly?","volume":"25","author":"T Gilbert","year":"2011","journal-title":"Cogn Emot."},{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0326446.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"797","DOI":"10.1177\/0956797612461508","article-title":"Friends shrink foes: the presence of comrades decreases the envisioned physical formidability of an opponent","volume":"24","author":"DMT Fessler","year":"2013","journal-title":"Psychol Sci."},{"key":"pone.0326446.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"104715","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cognition.2021.104715","article-title":"Friend effects framework: contrastive and hierarchical processing in cheerleader effects","volume":"212","author":"EJ Burns","year":"2021","journal-title":"Cognition."},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0326446.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"193","DOI":"10.1037\/h0059199","article-title":"Halo effect in reverse\u2014are teachers\u2019 ratings of high-school pupils valid?","volume":"35","author":"HH Remmers","year":"1944","journal-title":"Journal of Educational Psychology."},{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0326446.ref012","article-title":"Weapons make the man (larger): formidability is represented as size and strength in humans","volume":"7","author":"DMT Fessler","year":"2012","journal-title":"PLoS One."},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0326446.ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"455","DOI":"10.1037\/a0035826","article-title":"If looks could kill: anger attributions are intensified by affordances for doing harm","volume":"14","author":"C Holbrook","year":"2014","journal-title":"Emotion."},{"issue":"8","key":"pone.0326446.ref014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1377","DOI":"10.1080\/02699930903485076","article-title":"Presentation and validation of the radboud faces database","volume":"24","author":"O Langner","year":"2010","journal-title":"Cognition and emotion."},{"key":"pone.0326446.ref015","unstructured":"RTeam. Core. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http:\/\/www.R-project.org. 2013;201."},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0326446.ref016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"66","DOI":"10.1177\/1948550616662126","article-title":"The company you keep: personality and friendship characteristics","volume":"8","author":"M Laakasuo","year":"2017","journal-title":"Social Psychological and Personality Science."},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0326446.ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"509","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-6494.2010.00625.x","article-title":"Emerging late adolescent friendship networks and Big Five personality traits: a social network approach","volume":"78","author":"M Selfhout","year":"2010","journal-title":"J Pers."}],"container-title":["PLOS One"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0326446","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]],"date-time":"2025-10-17T17:54:09Z","timestamp":1760723649000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0326446"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"June Chun","family":"Yeung","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"editor","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]]},"references-count":17,"journal-issue":{"issue":"10","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0326446","relation":{},"ISSN":["1932-6203"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1932-6203","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,17]]}}}