|
"Behavioral
Psychology"
The
Behavioral Solution: Conditioning To Kill
By
1946 the U.S. Army had completely accepted Marshall's World
War II findings of a 15 to 20% firing rate among American
riflemen, and the Human Resources Research Office of the
US Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training
that replaced the old method of firing at bull's-eye targets
with deeply ingrained operant conditioning using realistic,
man-shaped pop-up targets that fall when hit.
The discriminative stimulus was a realistic target popping
up in the soldier's field of view. For decades this target
was a two-dimensional silhouette, but in recent years both
the military and police forces have been changing to mannequin-like,
three-dimensional, molded plastic targets; photo realistic
targets; and actual force-on-force encounters against live
adversaries utilizing the paint pellet projectile training
systems pioneered by The Armiger Corporation under the name
of Simunition. These are key refinements in the effectiveness
of the conditioning process, since it is crucial that the
discriminative stimulus used in training be as realistic
as possible in its simulation of the actual, anticipated
stimulus if the training is to be transferred to reality
in a crucial, life-and-death situation.
The
operant response being conditioned is to accurately fire
a weapon at a human being, or at least a realistic simulation
of one. The firer and the grader know if the firing is accurate,
since the target drops when hit. This realistically simulates
what will happen in combat, and it is gratifying and rewarding
to the firer. This minimal gap between the performance (hitting
the target) and the initial reinforcement (target drops)
is key to successful conditioning since it provides immediate
association between the two events. A form of token economy
is established as an accumulation of small achievements
(hits) are cashed in for marksmanship badges and other associated
rewards (such as a three-day pass), and punishments (such
as having to retrain on a Saturday that would have otherwise
been a day off) are presented to those who fail to perform.
The
training process involves hundreds of repetitions of this
action, and ultimately the subject becomes like Watson's
rats in the Kerplunk Experiment, performing a complex set
of voluntary motor actions until they become automatic or
reflexive in nature. Psychologists know that this kind of
powerful operant conditioning is the only technique that
will reliably influence the primitive, midbrain processing
of a frightened human being, just as fire drills condition
terrified school children to respond properly during a fire,
and repetitious, stimulus-response conditioning in flight
simulators enables frightened pilots to respond reflexively
to emergency situations.
Modern marksmanship training is such an excellent example
of behaviorism that it has been used for years in the introductory
psychology course taught to all cadets at the US Military
Academy at West Point as a classic example of operant conditioning.
In the 1980s, during a visit to West Point, B.F. Skinner
identified modern military marksmanship training as a near-perfect
application of operant conditioning.
Throughout history various factors have been manipulated
to enable and force combatants to kill, but the introduction
of conditioning in modern training was a true revolution.
The application and perfection of these basic conditioning
techniques appear to have increased the rate of fire from
near 20% in World War II to approximately 55% in Korea and
around 95% in Vietnam. Similar high rates of fire resulting
from modern conditioning techniques can be seen in FBI data
on law enforcement firing rates since the nationwide introduction
of modern conditioning techniques in the late 1960s.
One of the most dramatic examples of the value and power
of this modern, psychological revolution in training can
be seen in Richard Holmes' observations of the 1982 Falklands
War. The superbly trained (i.e., conditioned) British forces
were without air or artillery superiority and were consistently
outnumbered three-to-one while attacking the poorly trained
(i.e. unconditioned) but well equipped and carefully dug-in
Argentine defenders. Superior British firing rates (which
Holmes estimates to be well over 90%) resulting from modern
training techniques has been credited as a key factor in
the series of British victories in that brief but bloody
war. Today nearly all first-world nations and their law
enforcement agencies have thoroughly integrated operant
conditioning into their marksmanship training. It is no
accident that in recent years the world's largest employer
of psychologists is the US Army Research Bureau. However,
most third-world nations, and most nations which rely on
large numbers of draftees rather than a small, well trained
army, generally do not (or cannot) spare the resources for
this kind of training. And any future army or law enforcement
agency which attempts to go into close combat without such
psychological preparation is likely to meet a fate similar
to that of the Argentines.
|
|
|
|
Read
a different article:
|
© 1999 by Academic Press. All rights of reproduction
in any form reserved.
|
