"Teaching Kids To Kill"

Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is like Pavlov's dog in Psych 101. Remember the ringing bell, the food, and the dog could not hear the bell without salivating?

In World War II, the Japanese would make some of their young, unblooded soldiers bayonet innocent prisoners to death. Their friends would cheer them on. Afterwards, all these soldiers were treated to the best meal they've had in months, sake, and to so-called "comfort girls." The result? They learned to associate violence with pleasure.

This technique is so morally reprehensible that there are very few examples of it in modern U.S. military training, but the media is doing it to our children. Kids watch vivid images of human death and suffering and they learn to associate it with: laughter, cheers, popcorn, soda, and their girlfriend's perfume (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999).

After the Jonesboro shootings, one of the high school teachers told me about her students' reaction when she told them that someone had shot a bunch of their little brothers, sisters, and cousins in the middle school. "They laughed," she told me with dismay, "they laughed." We have raised a generation of barbarians who have learned to associate human death and suffering with pleasure (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999).

ARTICLE CONTINUES  . . .

Jump to any section of this article: Select an article section A Virus of Violence Killing Unnaturally The Methods in this Madness: Brutalization Operant Conditioning Role Models Unlearning Violence Fighting Back: Education, Legislation, Litigation Glossary of Terms Beginning of this Article

Read a different article: Behavioral Psychology Weaponry, Evolution of Psychological Effects of Combat Aggression & Violence Critical Incident Amnesia The Morality of Bombing On Killing II: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill Trained to Kill

Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Volume 3, p.159
© 1999 by Academic Press. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.