The exact number of mass shootings is hard to pin down, but gun violence is disturbingly common in the United States, especially compared with other developed countries. And repeated exposure to acts of violence — even when that exposure comes secondhand through the news — can have a numbing effect, according to Yuval Neria, a professor of psychology at Columbia University.
This effect has been mostly studied with regard to terrorist attacks in countries like Israel that have experienced chronic violence, but there’s no reason to imagine that it wouldn’t extend to mass shootings or other acts of gun violence as well, Neria and other psychologists said, because the two events aren’t psychologically distinct. “There isn’t a difference between mass shootings and acts of terrorism in terms of how they affect the brain — they’re both intentional, man-made acts that inflict horror and fear,” he said. [...]
Slovic’s research has shown that because feelings and intuition play such a strong role in our evaluations of risk, we’re less likely to instinctively perceive items that are familiar or beneficial as something that’s hazardous and should be banned or regulated. This has particularly strong implications for gun owners. “A lot of people own guns or know someone who owns a gun or see a general benefit to guns,” Slovic said. “Positive feelings about something like guns can dampen the emotional response to an event like a shooting and make it feel less risky.” [...]
Another crucial distinction between terrorist attacks and mass shootings, from a psychological perspective, is that terrorists’ ideologies and goals are relatively clear, while mass shooters’ motives tend to be diverse or opaque. The apparent randomness of mass shootings makes it hard to collectively focus blame or anger, according to Sarah Lowe, a professor of psychology at Montclair State University. This could help explain why repeated exposure to terrorist attacks in Israel is seen as having helped strengthen national unity, while mass shootings in the U.S. seem to sow divisions.
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