Conditioned To Kill?

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes. I don't want to sound like I'm blindly defending Grossman here. It's just that every point people have raised (literally) has been addressed in detail by Grossman in his book. That doesn't mean he's right, of course, but simply saying "do you now [sic] what a bayonet is?" doesn't refute the 11 pages in which Grossman specifically addressing killing with the bayonet and knife in warfare.

There's a continual line that supports the same contention. The Macedonians were able to be successful because the length of the sarissa removed the Phalanx from immediate proximity with their victims.

Roman historic records indicate a specific focus on forcing their soldiers to stab with the weapons rather than use the edge. They also document a primary reason for victory was that their enemies consistently slashed instead of stabbing.

Military figures throughout the 19th Century report the same pattern - even in the exceedingly rare bayonet attacks soldiers would not stab, usually instead using the butt of their muskets like a club.

Studies comparing the battlefields of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme found that stabbing wounds were exceedingly rare. Despite the massed bayonet charges at the Somme, edged weapon wounds amounted to a fraction of one percent of all wounds.

Accounts from the British conquest of India also show a serious psychological resistance to receiving or giving a stabbing wound. The same message repeats in Rwanda.

Thus, this appears to be a phenomena that spans cultures and centuries. Correct or not, the theory is thorough and well supported. I think it deserves genuine scrutiny, not flippant dismissal.

-Gumboot

I've read Grossman's book and think it's a magnifcent work. I just wanted to mention that in his section on bayonets he states, citing several sources, that bayonet charges that came close to melee range, as opposed to those stopped my massive fire, almost invariably resulted in the enemy routing rather than engaging in melee. IIRC, he says something to the effect of, "Thus, all militaries could honestly say, 'No one stands up before our bayonets."

 

[Corsair 115]

But the military conditioning techniques do work, and a target falling down when it is hit is even less like reality than a computer game graphic. What appears to be key is repeatedly simulating the act with appropriate target response, rather than having it look convincingly real.

Does the style of FPS game play any role in your analysis? Does playing Unreal Tournament count the same as playing Call of Duty? The former involves science-fiction weapons with few parallels in the real world, while the latter tries to more closely replicate real-world weapons and scenarios.

 

[The Atheist]

To be honest I'd be hesitant to go that way. I think increased exposure to violence - in various computer games, in films, in news articles, from violent friends or family members and so forth, would certainly be a major contributing factor in a person becoming violent. But I think "being violent" and "having one's resistance to killing disabled" are related but separate issues.

Well, since killing another person is pretty much at the top of the tree in terms of violence, I don't see how they can be anything but closely related. Desensitisation isn't new, paedophiles indulge in it, although for some reason it's called "grooming". You can have a look at what's happening in Aussie with John Howard's "clean up the Abos" statement, where porn is being removed for that very reason. Even in places like medical training, the early introduction to fairly repulsive stuff is lots about conditioning students to lose sensitivity to blood, gore and suffering.

Mainstream thinking accepts the violence/desensitisation link and has for some time as far as I'm aware, which is why some games are rated R18 - although I would have thought that's probably the worst age group to give it to; full of testosterone and blarney.

If people are being conditioned to accept killing, then we should see a pattern evolve of murders being done by people who have strong exposure to violence, both real and pretend. That would appear to already be the case, with most of the murders I hear about being done by violent filth who grew up in a world of violent filth.

Human see, human do.

Whether more people are being encouraged to be violent or whether those with violent tendencies are just giving birth to their fantasies is probably the more important question.

You've raised a premise about the desensitisation process; what do you suggest? Banning the games? I see someone's mentioned Wii. I was drawn to VR games a million years ago, but the technology was never quite up to it. With the introduction of Wii - a close relative of VR - how long will it be before a young man can strap on a helmet and go blast some ragheads, seeing the gore splatter? Hell, I play JFK Reloaded all the time.

If the premise is correct, we're going to bringing up a very violent generation, with a high capacity [appetite?] for killing. Once the effects of constant desensitisation by games are added to the nightly slaughter on TV where killing's great and tits are banned, then added to the number of kids being brought up in violent households, there must be a lot of potential harm to come.

No, I don't I'm afraid. However the actual scale of the conflict may be too small to make useful conclusions - only about 2,000 people were killed in 25 years of sporadic fighting.

Still it might be interesting given the preponderance of close-quarter fighting.

Raises another interesting point, too. This is a subject I'm delving into ancient memories with, but I seem to recall that some people - American Natives, North African tribes and possibly Polynesians, didn't actually create vast numbers of casualties in their conflicts, using battles as an almost staged affair where once the stronger side became evident, the weaker one retired. On the other hand, Dyaks and tribes in Indonesia were wont to kill all of the participants on the losing side of battles, where all the weapons were sharp. I'm pretty sure that being killed was such a certainty in defeat that Dyaks and other tribes grew braids to make head-removal eaiser. If Jews are right and the OT is to be believed, Hebrews were pretty likely to massacre people as well.

Well, the premise would suggest that soldiers - despite being trained well in bayonet use - would have a profound resistance to stabbing another human, and thus would not do so. This is supported by other black powder battlefields where soldiers were repeatedly documented reversing their weapons in close quarters fighting and using the stocks of their muskets like clubs, rather than using the bayonet as they were trained to do.

-Gumboot

I'm not sure I get that the sensitivity would preclude a stabbing attack, but be comfortable with using a bludgeon instead. Simple self-preservation should encourage using the best-available attack, so your premise is obviously that the hard-wiring against killing is so powerful that it overrides self-preservation.

The reasons for a hard-wired resistance to killing one's own kind is pretty obvious and as you pointed out, is pretty well confirmed by other mammals, from elephants to gorillas.

You seem to have made a compelling case, so I guess the big question is, what next?

 

[krazyKemist]

Accounts from the British conquest of India also show a serious psychological resistance to receiving or giving a stabbing wound. The same message repeats in Rwanda.

Thus, this appears to be a phenomena that spans cultures and centuries. Correct or not, the theory is thorough and well supported. I think it deserves genuine scrutiny, not flippant dismissal.

-Gumboot

Doesn't this seem to be a western cultural trait? All those cases refer to the behavior of western soldiers at war. From what I have read of Rwanda, some people engaged into gleefully dismembering their own neighbors, and in some cases, their own family members over there ! All it took to defeat a biological resistence to killing were a few radio shows...

Even in the western world, mass killings such as the ones the Nazis perpetrated against their own mentally handicapped (often forgotten) and jew populations speak quite loudly against a biological inhibition to killing your own species. Many cases of neighbor denouncing/killing neighbor there. Often quite up close and personal.

True, both these cases speak of a high level of dehumanization. But wasn't the actual conditioning relatively easily obtained ? Without any kind of military training ? Against a biological constraint? How can such a mass hysteria, turning neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, gather such momentum if there is an actual biological inhibition against killing your own species ?

the Kemist

 

[krazyKemist]

One detail : I think that an animal's aversion (I include a human's aversion here) for their own dead is a little different from aversion to killing.

Aversion for the dead/blood/gore/suffering of your own species has a definite purpose : to signal you to get the hell out of there before the same thing happens to you ! It will also prevent the spread of diseases. That, I would definitely classify as biological/instinctual. Nobody taught you that one. Most, if not all higher animals avoid their own dead.

But even this can be overcome in humans ! And without any psychological damage that I can see... Well, all the surgeons I've met until now seemed quite balanced to me (even if some of them admitedly do enjoy the sight of blood). In animals, well, if you deprive them of food...

Could it mean that a conditioning could be stronger than an actual instinct ?

the Kemist

 

[gumboot]

Before I respond to anyone's excellent posts, I have a confession to make, and frankly I feel a bit stupid about it.

It has been a little while since I read Grossman's book, but last night I flicked through the last part again where he relates it to video games, and then goes on a rant about violent media. I don't value the last part of his book quite so much, partly because it's more the actual psychological process of killing that interests me, and partly because I think some of his application to society is somewhat flawed.

However there is one key detail regarding conditioning by video games that I think it is vital I make clear, and it's an important detail that I shamefully missed.

Grossman specifically expresses particular concern about arcade style FPS computer games in which the player stands up in front of a screen with a plastic gun in hand and shoots at enemy targets as they appear. Games like Time Crisis. This, obviously, is a huge jump from a PC-based FPS or playing an FPS style game on an X-Box or something without the optional gun controllers you can buy.

Myself and others have expressed that the interface used in a video game would have relevance, and upon rereading it appears that's exactly the case. Of course Grossman also, right at the end of his book, tackles a separate issue - desensitisation to violence.

Personally I think he should have stuck to the killing process in this book, and not gone off on a tangent. While he obviously has psychology and military expertise, I think some of his conclusions, especially regarding violence in movies, suffers from a lack of expert knowledge in those areas.

For example he identifies violent horror films, and how they are becoming increasingly violent and "immoral" (protagonists who kill for no reasons and operate outside the law, antagonists who don't die, etc), yet he fails to acknowledge a number of other factors, for example that cinema admissions have been steadily dropping since the 1930's, or that these violent horror films represent a tiny fraction of all films made, or that television - which seized the role of key entertainer from the cinema in the 1960's - is far less violent than the cinema.

He suggests their role models are immoral, but in my experience teenagers and young people are more likely to identify with their favourite TV series character than a movie character. Even modern youth-orientated TV series' are pretty morally rounded. Consider shows like Dawson's Creek etc. In this regard, I would consider reality TV a far greater threat than violent horror films.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

Just a few thoughts...

Thanks for your valuable feedback Huntsman! An excellent detailed post.

Althought he drill in the military is definately a part of the conditioning that desensitizes a person, there is a control on the military training (which is where the authority comes in): you only kill the enemy.

From what I can gather this is precisely Grossman's concern. He cites that the "shoot or don't shoot" style of games like Time Crisis exactly replicates the conditioning system introduced by the FBI in the 1960's (demonstrated amusingly in the film Men In Black. Yet whereas law enforcement put emphasis on the "don't shoot", players of these computer games only learn "shoot". It's kind of like, the military trains a puppy to be an attack dog, but they put a leash on it. The video games also train puppies to be attack dogs, but there's no one there to put a leash on them, and if there is, there's no one holding the other end.

Of course, I think this led to some problems in the current action in Iraq, and likely a similar mechanism for things that occurred in Vietnam. The enemy group is "Arab terrorists". But, they look just like the civillians, and often are civillians who took up arms. You can't pick them out of a group. So the dehumanization "bleeds over" to the civillian sector, and you end up with things like Abu Garib. In Vietnam, it was a similar situation: the enemy was not readily identifiable.

Grossman also suggests this is a major repercussion of conditioning soldiers to kill. He wrote his book before 9/11, but he predicted that the US military would find itself experiencing more situations like My Lai, as a result of the conditioning. It looks like he was right.

1. Means... [SNIP]

2. Motive. This is where the dehumanization techniques come in... [SNIP]

3. Oppurtunity...[SNIP]

That's an excellent summary. The only thing I'd tentatively add is that, to a degree the same dehumanisation process occurs in video games, simply because you don't really think of them as people, merely as targets. Also, Grossman would argue that young people are desensitised through violence in films etc. I'm not sure I completely agree with him on that point, but that's his position.

I think you don't see increased violence in military personnel because the military training also tries to control items 2 and 3, motive and oppurtunity, above. This also helps explain some of the wartime atrocities, I think, that occur against non-combatants. I'd have to do the research, but it seems more of the atrocities in modern wars occur when one has trouble telling the "enemy" from anyone else (guerilla wars, civil wars without clear uniforms for each side, terrorist actions, etc). This tends to support some of the ideas above (if it holds true).

Yes I think this is very much true. Another thing to consider is that atrocity has its own dark empowerment, and leaders will take advantage of that - at the cost of the psychological well being of their soldiers.

One might even suggest that atrocity is a primitive way in which military forces dealt (and still deal) with the resistance to killing. Committing atrocity certainly disables that resistance. The problem is committing atrocity traps you in a situation where you have to commit more atrocities to ensure your mental well-being.

1. Means. An FPS game where the enemies are non-human/non-humanoid, mechanical, or otherwise "wierd" would offfer a lesser effect here, while those using realistic representations of people, with relaistic blood and gore, a higher level.

I agree. I think the game interface also makes a big difference.

2. Motive. This is the sketchy one. If anything, this is the one I'd throw out on FPS games. I think the motive provided by an FPS is only going to exist if there are already certain biased thoughts against a particular group or mental problems in the player. I think the FPS can feed an already-existing motive, but I don't think they'd create one.

I agree completely on this count also. I think any sort of media can disable that part of you that is telling you not to do something bad, but I don't believe it's as effective at making you want to do it.

3. Oppurtunity. Again, I think this is iffier for FPS games. I think this effect would vary from game-to-game (games that offer penalties for hitting non-combatants, and offfering clear enemies being a lesser effect, and those that rewards random killing a greater effect). Again, though, I think there has to be an underlying inclination or metnal issue before this would really have a large effect.

I agree on this count also.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

I think that what we need to do is to observe how much psychological damage adults raised in warrior societies from infancy (not in western ones) do sustain after engaging in killing. I think we are, once again, a little blinded by our own cultural background, which we naturally, well, find more natural.

Well the research Grossman presents seems to suggest that it's not only a feature of Western Culture. The Axis in WW2 evidently had the same issues with non-firing, as did medieval Europeans (and that was definitely a warrior society), as did the Ancient Romans. The same was observed in Indian populations during the British occupation. And it's been evident in our society for hundreds of years, long before we developed our social aversion to killing.

There's circumstantial evidence in the combat tactics of ancient cultures around the world.

The other thing is, when I look at warrior cultures at the extreme end - such as the Spartans - I see crude ancient versions of the conditioning system employed today. Spartan youths were forced to carry out violence and to kill - under threat of their own life. We know that the presence of a powerful authority will briefly overcome the resistance to killing. We know that killing itself works to remove the resistance to killing. If Spartans were raised, from birth, to love fighting and killing, why was it when they reached adulthood so many still had to be forced to make their first kill? Surely, if the resistance to killing was purely social, it would have been no trouble to these young warriors.

As I said, evidence from experiments shows that social conditioning that has been established since birth can very rapidly be totally reversed. What is special about this "don't kill humans" social conditioning that it alone, of all our social conditioning, can't be undone by counter social conditioning?

This is the key thing for me. The military could not overcome the resistance to killing via social conditioning. That same social conditioning made soldiers desensitised to violence, it made them obey orders even when those orders meant certain death, yet despite how powerful the system was, it completely failed to get soldiers to kill.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

Yes, I quite agree... Dehumanization seems to be the only effective method of pushing soldiers to kill the ennemy. With an unfortunate drawback, unfortunately: severe underestimation/excessive fear of the ennemy. This has been seen many times. A readily available example is what happened in somalia in 1993.

Explain?

The dehumanisation thing appears to play a part, but doesn't appear to be fundamental. The enemy were dehumanised in Napoleonic Wars. It didn't work. The enemy were dehumanised in World War Two, it didn't work.

-Gumboot

 

[The Atheist]

... partly because it's more the actual psychological process of killing that interests me,...

If you now admit to wearing camouflage pants, I want to know where you live so I know what part of town to stay out of! (Guessing that being a media 20-something, maybe Herne Bay/Parnell/CBD?)

If you want the psychology of killing, there a ####load of local examples.

...I would consider reality TV a far greater threat than violent horror films.

-Gumboot

Amen to that.

 

[gumboot]

It sounds to me that this fellow Grossman has an ad hoc argument for nearly everything that's not in support of his position; at least I give points for being meticulous.

I think it probably just comes across that way because I'm offering up parts of his book in response to specific remarks being raised.

The structure of the book is pretty comprehensive and progresses logically:

Part One - Killing and the Existence of Resistance: A World of Virgins Studying Sex
Part Two - Killing and Combat Trauma: The Role of Killing in Psychiatric Casualties
Part Three - Killing and Physical Distance: From a Distance, You Don't Look Anything Like a Friend
Part Four - An Anatomy of Killing: All Factors Considered
Part Five - Killing and Atrocities: "No Honor Here, No Virtue"
Part Six - The Killing Response Stages: What Does It Feel Like To Kill?
Part Seven - Killing in Vietnam: What Have We Done to Our Soldiers?
Part Eight - Killing in America: What Have We Done to Our Children?

Still....In reading a great deal of WWII history (I'm a bit of a buff...), it's apparent that large numbers of soldiers become quite sanguine about their activities. Audie Murphy's book was rather chilling.
I suppose this is just "desensitization"....

Yes, it is. Desensitisation and conditioning to kill are not at all the same thing. Humans have known how to be desensitised to violence and death for a very long time.

The original premise, that FPS-type games perform this same sort of desensitization, is still rather suspect IMO.

That's not the premise. (Grossman credits desensitisation more to movies, which I don't necessarily agree with). The premise is that FPS-type games disable killing resistance. A person desensitised to violence can still have their resistance to killing intact (WW2 soldiers being the most obvious example).

We've had such games available for perhaps 20 years? What percentage of the populace is involved? Mostly rather well-to-do kids with access to computers and consoles.
I know that at present, video games (to use the general term) are now extremely popular, and the industry now generates more revenue than does motion pictures.
What percentage of this overall total are represented by the FPS genre?

In other words, at what point do we see large numbers of young men actually playing such games? What would that number be?
How would this correlate to instances of actual violence committed, and how would we determine what percentage of say, murderers were video-game addicts? The average "gangsta", responsible for so many inner-city homicides, is likely not spending hours playing GTA; He's living GTA.

Quite. I don't necessarily agree with the leap from "games condition to kill" to "gamers kill". Grossman, in citing the steep rise in violent crime, doesn't, for example, take into account that urban populations are increasing three times as fast as rural populations. Crime happens primarily in urban areas.

What percentage of young men now entering the military are "pre-conditioned" to kill by their prior exposure to video games?
Do we now see a greater percentage of soldiers in the field becoming more effective fighters as a result of this exposure? Do military trainers notice a difference in the combat effectiveness of their recruits?

Actually, in support of this contention, one of the favourite pass time of soldiers in Iraq appears to be playing FPS computer games. And the game American Army was developed by the US Army specifically to attract recruits. There certainly appears to be a correlation between what makes a good soldier, and FPS players.

Do our soldier's enemies (often from underdeveloped nations with limited access to such things) suffer in comparison? Are they as likely to be effective killing machines or less so?

Well, the evidence suggests the resistance is universal.

I'm inclined to look for simpler things.

1. The innate tendency towards violence amongst human beings.

In this theory, there's an innate tendency to posture amongst human beings. Not to kill.

2. The innate tendency to dehumanize the "other", the "enemy".

I see this as something of a necessity when you're faced with killing.

3. The innate tendency to protect one's fellows. In immediate terms, the individual's fellow soldiers, (well-observed among combat forces; "I'm just trying to keep my buddies alive") and in general terms one's family, tribe, country, whatever.

Except it's not well-observed at all. Soldiers in WW2 in combat would fail to fire their weapons even when their own survival and the survival of their fellow soldiers depended on it.

In 1879 at the Battle of Rorke's Drift 139 British soldiers were attacked by about 5,000 Zulus, and yet even with their lives in critical peril, most of the British soldiers failed to fire.

In civilian circles, the FBI found in the 1950's that repeatedly their agents were being killed, along with civilians, because the agents failed to fire when they should have done so.

Despite what I see as rather dismissive claims of the level of violence inflicted by our ancestors, humanity has a long and bloody history of warfare, violence, persecution, pogrom, genocide, torture, etc. etc.

The levels of violence are not at all dismissed. The perceived level of intentional personal killing is dismissed. As well it should. Most people's understanding of medieval warfare, for example, comes from Hollywood or novels. The reality, as constructed from the evidence, is totally different.

The image of long lines of soldiers facing off, running together, and clashing in violent conflict is a myth. In the majority of medieval or earlier open field battles, one side breaks before the armies make contact. The overwhelming majority of soldiers die while trying to run away.

One might argue that our contemporary soldiers are perhaps less willing to kill, as we now expend a great deal of effort to limit "collateral damage" (hardly a concern in WWII!) and to prosecute the perpetrators of atrocities.

With all due respect, I've been saying for some time that physical distance and technological distance between the killer and victim plays a significant part in disabling the resistance to killing.

Psychologically speaking, dropping thousands of tonnes of bombs on a city from 30,000ft is totally different to personally shooting a fellow human being from 30 feet.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

Well, since killing another person is pretty much at the top of the tree in terms of violence, I don't see how they can be anything but closely related.

They are, certainly. Killing is normally quite violent. But there's, I think, a reason that many cultures perceive cold blooded emotionless murder to be much worse than beating someone to death in a violent rage.

Violence is a natural product of the posturing I mentioned. If you get too emotional, and if the posturing goes too far (if no one agrees to submit) it becomes violent, and might result in death.

But that's quite separate to engaging in violence against someone with the specific intent of killing them.

The idea being, killing people will desensitise you to violence as well as remove your resistance to killing. Carrying out non-lethal violence (posturing) will desensitise you to violence but will not remove your resistance to killing. Exposure to violence of any type, without partaking, will also desensitise you to violence but will not remove your resistance to killing.

So yes, killing relates to desensitising against violence, but only because by it's nature it is violence (usually). Theoretically, you could remove someone's resistance to killing by having them kill in a non violent way, and they would not be desensitised to violence.

You've raised a premise about the desensitisation process; what do you suggest? Banning the games?

Nitpick - I've raised a premise about the conditioning process, not the desensitisation process. And no I don't think games (generally) should be banned. I think Grossman might have a legitimate argument in banning FPS shooting games in which the player actually physically carries a gun, however.

I think classifications are useful. It is my understanding that in the USA film and game ratings are not legally binding in the way that they are down this way. It's more of an advisory. Can anyone confirm this?

In New Zealand, a government agency classifies all media, and it is illegal for people under the specified age to watch that media. If a 15 year old goes to an R16 movie the cinema chain can get a hefty fine and even be shut down. Even if the parent is with the child they cannot enter an R-rated film.

(Having worked briefly at a cinema I have had this argument with parents many a time. It's hard trying to resist the urge to tell the parents that you refuse to assist them in psychologically abusing their child)

I'm not sure I get that the sensitivity would preclude a stabbing attack, but be comfortable with using a bludgeon instead.

The reasoning is that the proximity and intimacy of a stabbing kill is greater than a cutting or bashing kill, thus the resistance is greater.

Simple self-preservation should encourage using the best-available attack, so your premise is obviously that the hard-wiring against killing is so powerful that it overrides self-preservation.

Exactly! This is precisely the claim.

You seem to have made a compelling case, so I guess the big question is, what next?

Go over to the politics subforum?

I'm not sure. Ultimately I think desensitisation to violence, denser concentrations of urban population, isolation of the family group within society, and access to weapons plays a much bigger role in actual violence levels than conditioning to kill.

The only place I can see conditioning to kill being important is in mass killings, and they after all, are very rare. I don't want to get political, but my stance is you can't massacre thirty people with a knife. Control guns.

-Gumboot

 

[gumboot]

If you now admit to wearing camouflage pants, I want to know where you live so I know what part of town to stay out of! (Guessing that being a media 20-something, maybe Herne Bay/Parnell/CBD?)

Hah! No. My interest in the psychology of killing is purely linked to my filmmaking and writing. You're safe...

I write medieval fantasy, and Grossman's book has had a big part in informing both how I write battle scenes, and the development of specific warrior-based cultures.

I live on the North Shore (and GOD these people can't drive!).

-Gumboot

 

[R.Mackey]

FWIW Gumboot, I play paintball about eight times a year, nearly all 24-hour scenario games. The average paintballer plays three or four times a month, generally about five-hour long sessions of roughly ten to twenty short games each.

Do you know a way to test for being a "good soldier?" Again, I don't believe we can use crime statistics pro or con this argument any longer -- too many interfering factors -- and I'm no longer sure if this argument is falsifiable.

 

[gumboot]

FWIW Gumboot, I play paintball about eight times a year, nearly all 24-hour scenario games. The average paintballer plays three or four times a month, generally about five-hour long sessions of roughly ten to twenty short games each.

So you play a little over 30 minutes a day on average, and an average player plays a little under an hour a day on average... It would be interesting to compare that with how much time an infantry soldier spends on the gun range in a typical first year of training.

Do you know a way to test for being a "good soldier?" Again, I don't believe we can use crime statistics pro or con this argument any longer -- too many interfering factors -- and I'm no longer sure if this argument is falsifiable.

To be honest I don't think crime statistics are even relevant to the part of the argument I'm interested in. I think the argument is falsifiable, but the methods you'd have to use to do so would probably be highly unethical.

The only way to test it, as far as I can see, is one of two ways:

1) Condition one group of infantry soldiers the standard way, and condition another group only through use of video games of varying types, interfaces, etc. Then have an actual war and put all of these soldiers into combat and analyse how they do.

This would be bad for a number of reasons. A) Sending poorly trained soldiers into battle is liable to get them unnecessarily killed. B) Sending poorly trained soldiers into battle is liable to make you lose.

OR

2) Contrive some reason to have a number of young people of various levels of video game experience in a situation where they have a gun and should shoot someone (but are not being told they have to shoot someone by an authority figure) and record how many actually kill someone (and possibly how many actually kill more than one?)

Again, this is somewhat unethical.

OR

3) As with 2, but instead of actually having them kill people, simply make them think they are killing someone (weapon with blanks, etc) as per the Milgram Experiment.

This also, is considered highly unethical.

The best we can do is make a logically sound argument in the form of:

If X, then Y.
X, therefore Y.

If [conditioning techniques], then [resistance to killing disabled].
[conditioning techniques], therefore [resistance to killing disabled].

We determine X from the military's training, and we determine Y from the results in combat. Thus if a given activity has X, it is logically sound (though not scientifically demonstrated) that it results in Y.

-Gumboot

 

[R.Mackey]

Yeah, somewhat unethical.

Perhaps your earlier observation about failure to shoot could be used as a marker -- ammunition consumption rates of troops conditioned differently might be separable, but even that might be too easily confounded by other factors...

Did Grossman attempt to outline an experiment, or back his contentions with modern data?

 

[Corsair 115]

And the game American Army was developed by the US Army specifically to attract recruits.

But did it?

 

[The Atheist]

The only place I can see conditioning to kill being important is in mass killings, and they after all, are very rare. I don't want to get political, but my stance is you can't massacre thirty people with a knife. Control guns.

-Gumboot

Well, all the local evidence agrees with you and so do I. Schlaepfer, Bain (whichever one), Anderson (Raurimu) and David Gray. Every case involves a firearm.

 

[Hokulele]

Random thought, did the author also research conditioning to die? I know this was one of the biggest shocks to the US forces encountering the Japanese in the Pacific Arena during WWII.

 

[Bikewer]

To go on with this just a bit more:

I my ideas are conditioned by the notion that human nature is what it is, and hasn't changed noticeably in the 50-60,000 years since Homo Sapiens Sapiens appeared on the scene.
The question is, "do humans have a disinclination to indulge in killing?" and can this disinclination be turned off by conditioning/training? (At least, that's how I'm perceiving the way this thread is running.

If we put this trait up on a typical bell-curve chart, I imagine we'd find much the same as we would with other aspects of human behavior. That is, on one end, we'd find people who are very strongly disinclined to kill, or even indulge in violence. (some of my weapons-oriented bulletin board members might derisively call these people "sheeple")
At the other end would be those individuals who have little or no such disinclination. At the extreme, we'd have the psychopaths, serial killers, and the like. Still, a percentage that would have little inhibition.
Then the larger middle of the curve, represented by shadings one way or another.
We'd think that perhaps in previous cultures that had a warrior caste or class, that the folks from the "will kill" end would be attracted to seeking a warrior lifestyle.
Those that were in the "no kill" percentile would perhaps be inclined towards other pursuits.
The psychopaths might well become the royal executioner/torturer....

So what of all those people in the middle of the curve? Obviously, through much of history, these people were very seldom involved in warfare. Warfare would be conducted by the warriors.
However, at some point when civilizations began to grow and populations to become very large, then we began to see conscription and mercenary activities.
Conscripts would of necessity include folks who were disinclined to one degree or another. Some percentage of these could perhaps be conditioned to kill, and some perhaps not.
As mentioned, there are cases of individuals who even in the extremis of personal combat found it difficult or impossible to engage the enemy.
(I wonder how much of this might be attributed to simple psychological shutdown rather than a disinclination to kill?)

Still, as I maintain, we have a long history of a goodly percentage of soldiers rather lustily engaging in slaughter.

In the present case of US forces, we are looking at a volunteer army. I have no opinion on the overall motivations for young men joining the Army, but I'm inclined to think that the vast majority of individuals entering the military during a time of war must think that there's a good chance they will be involved in combat. Might these individuals (as opposed to WWI-II conscripts) tend to come more from the "kill" end of the bell-curve?

The history of mercenary forces is somewhat murkier, as often the reason for joining in such activity is financial. The Irish were famously exported to do the dirty work of the British Empire, yet they were often faced with military service or starvation.... Some have noted that our present military volunteers tend to come from the lower end of the economic spectrum.

I'm still inclined to think that the triggering mechanism that allows people to kill is pretty much a "hair" trigger. There are those individuals who are very strongly disinclined to harm others, and no amount of triggering would be effective.
There are those who require little triggering at all, and a percentage from the middle of all this who might be influenced by training and conditioning....Or not.
Our ancestors were fairly successful at perpetrating violence and killing; I don't think this can be denied. I don't think we need to look for extraordinary means to explain our willingness to indulge in same.