“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.