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Natural Aversion To *Shoot To Kill* VS First Person Shooter Videogames
BranniganSepp
Swiss Burrito EnthusiastPSN: ExMaloBonumRegistered User regular
Swiss Burrito EnthusiastPSN: ExMaloBonumRegistered User regular
Supposedly, historically, a significant percentile of soldiers have been reluctant to deliver kill shots to the enemy. Here's a quote I found googling this...
...which made me wonder, does the prolific genre of first person online multiplayer shooters like the Call of Duty and Battlefield games desensitize their consumers to this natural *Kill Shot Aversion*, and if yes, is that a bad thing?
Originally Posted by Excerpt from "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows", Melanie Joy
Unnatural Born Killers
There is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating humans' seemingly natural aversion to killing. Much of the research in this area has been conducted by the military; analysts have found that soldiers tend to intentionally fire over the enemy's head, or not to fire at all.
Studies of combat activity during the Napoleonic and Civil Wars revealed stirking statistics. Given the ability of the men, their proximity to the enemy, and the capacity of their weapons, the number of enemy soldiers hit should have been well over 50 percent, resulting in a killing rate of hundreds per minute. Instead, however, the hit rate was only one to two per minute. And a similar phenomenon occured during World War I: according to british Lieutenant George Roupell, the only way he could get his men to stop firing into the air was by drawing his sword, walking down the trench, "beating [them] on the backside and ... telling them to fire low". World War II fire rates were also remarkably low: historian and US Army Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall rerported that, during battle, the firing rate was a mere 15 to 20 percent; in other words, out of every hundred men engaged in a firefight, only fifteen to twenty actually used their weapons. And in Vietnam, for every enemy soldiers killed, more than fifty thousand bullets were fired.
What these studies have taught the miltiary is that in order to get soldiers to shoot to kill, to actively participate in violence, the soldiers must be sufficiencly desensitized to the act of killing. In other words, they have to learn not to feel -- and not to feel responsible -- for their actions. They must be taught to override their own conscience. yet these studies also demonstrate that even in the face of immediate danger, in situations of extreme violence, most people are averse to killing. In other words, as Marshall concludes, "the vast majority of combatants throughout history, at the moment of truth when they could and should kill the enemy, have found themselves to be 'conscientious objectors'".
1: Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in war and Society. New York: Back Bay Books, 1996, 12.
2: Grossman, Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door. New York: Broadway Books, 2005.
3: Grossman, 15.
...which made me wonder, does the prolific genre of first person online multiplayer shooters like the Call of Duty and Battlefield games desensitize their consumers to this natural *Kill Shot Aversion*, and if yes, is that a bad thing?
BranniganSepp on
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In virtual space, I have aimed down sights at humanoid targets and shot to kill for well over 10,000 hours of my life, and I'd guess that if I was thrown into an actual war as a combatant, I'd not be particularly reluctant to do the same in real life. I guess witnessing the resulting atrocities might quickly change that back again, but I suspect my initial hesitation would be way less than if I'd never had played such games before. I do asscociate the act of doing so with winning, and a positive feedback loop.
Looking at footage of police shootings, it seems that today's law enforcement agents have a much higher tendency to shoot to kill than they had ever before. That's anecdotal and circumstantial evidence of course. Regardless, I think it's definitely a subject worth looking into. I'd certainly like to know, if videogames affect us in that manner. Am I being conditioned to shoot to kill? Is my natural aversion to delivering a kill shot being lowered? Is the average hesitation to shoot to kill of the general population decreasing?
Anecdotally, shooting dudes in games does nothing for me, seeing a fresh, mangled human body wrapped weirdly around the seats oh a car gives me a horrible knot in my stomach.
Your question kind of links up to do games make people violent and the current body of research says no. Or rather provocatively: the good science says no.
The atrocities all occur after you shoot. Taking aim, shooting to kill, that's the feat of skill that comes before the horror.
Historically, soldiers supposedly fumbled the feat of skill of taking aim and shooting to kill on purpose. I propose that the avid playing of authentic online multiplayer shooters, which make the act of aiming down sights and shooting to kill the central gameplay mechanic, and reward it accordingly upon success, might affect avid players of such games in that regard. Making us see it more as a commendable feat of skill in the moments leading up to the shot, rather than thinking about commiting an atrocity, and fumbling the process.
Aim. Shoot. Kill. The atrocity comes last. When the feat of skill part is long done. Videogames emphasize the feat of skill part, while completely negating the atrocity impact of the action. It's very much conditioning the player to take careful aim, and squeeze the trigger, for victory.
P.S. I've never shot a real gun in my life, and hopefully never have to. I get that it's a very different thing to doing so with a gamepad. At least for the most parts.
The act of taking resolve to pull that trigger towards another human being is not some divorced thing from [Shoot Gun] and [Kill man]. It's all the same process. The studies you talk about, such as the "hate school" training during WWI and WWII to get allied soldiers willing to shoot and kill Germans, it encompasses the entire will to destroy. Seperating it out is needless and isn't reflected in reality. The entire struggle over being willing to kill is mental. Your finger twitching once is the end of that process, and when you pull a trigger you know damn well you are intending to kill or grievously wound the person you are pointing the gun at. x10 if you are a soldier.
Playing video games has not, at least in the many studies I have seen over the years, shows any practical or statistical significance in the likelihood of people attacking or shooting other people. If you have some that are peer reviewed and show different outcomes, share them.
If we don't think of shooting to kill as an act of violence, but as a feat of skill, because of first person shooter videogames, then that turns the whole angle of *Do Videogames Make Us (More) Violent?* and that line of research moot. That's what I propose here.
I'm not arguing that videogames make us more violent, just more likely to not fumble a kill shot, when we find ourselves in such a situation.
What do you want us to do with that?
I'm just putting forth a thesis, not trying to prove one thing over another. I do certainly have a gut feeling that authentic military themed FPS games do condition us to aim true and pull the trigger. Tens of thousands of hours of practice most definitely have a conditioning impact on our brains. How far that extends out of the virtual space into the real world? That's the question really.
Bounce it back? Isn't that forums are for? Or are you uncomfortable with the notion that videogames might affect us one way or another?
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
No
Next question
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
I'm not sure if phrasing it differently has any impact.
The initial problem of your idea has been addressed by Enc. Using a different example: You're saying that the emotional side of things occurs after the act. Think about relationships. Asking a girl out. Sex. Are all of those things ice cold until afterwards? They aren't for me, why should ending someone else's existence be any different. Sure you might feel more intensely after the act but the build-up towards that isn't negligible.
So all that remains is: does playing games smooth out the build-up "curve" to such a degree that a shooter will be more likely to shoot?
I'd have to say no with current tech. Maybe in the future? Currently, nothing you do on screen mimics the real-life version. You aren't holding a gun. Your vision isn't "engaged" the same way (everything but the target blurred). The sounds are off. You can't smell anything. Your blood isn't full of adrenaline. You aren't sweating profusely. etc.
If it's a split second kind of scenario though? I think the mental conditioning of potentially tens of thousands of hours of virtual practice in videogames could, and likely does, make a difference. Visually, and trigger finger-wise, the actions are quite close already. I think an avid first person shooter player would more likely snap into a *I want to do well/win* kind of mindset, rather than reflect more deeply on his/her (re)action, and is thus less likely to miss/fumble the shot.
The military already uses combat simulators to that end since like a decade, and 2016 will see similar levels of VR tech get more widely distributed too. Many of us will stick Playstation Move controllers into plastic guns and handle physical representations of firearms in virtual space frequently from then on out - the conditioning then is literally as close as gaming can get to actually aiming down sights and pulling the trigger with a real firearm. Surely you must give me that much at least.
I've played authentic first person military shooters for over 10,000 hours. Doing anything for that long has a conditioning effect. If the mental conditioning of shooting at people on a screen with a gamepad does make a significant difference in real life situations or not certainly is highly questionable, but not completely unreasonable. Certainly, doing so in VR with ergonomically accurate gun-like input devices, that must have a significant influence on our actions in the real world in applicable situations? I think that's already a much easier sell.
Source: Roger J. Spiller, "S.L.A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire", The RUSI Journal, Winter 1988, pages 63-71
Like, go to a shooting range and actually pick up a rifle and see if pulling the trigger on one of those is in anyway similar to pulling RT on an XBox controller. Or just...I don't know. I don't know how you can go "a lightgun is probably close enough to an actual gun to make people good at firing them," and not just...fuck. I don't even really know what to say to that assertion.
I have literally zero emotional investment in anybody's notions about videogames. They're not my baby.
"I propose that the avid playing of authentic online multiplayer shooters, which make the act of aiming down sights and shooting to kill the central gameplay mechanic, and reward it accordingly upon success, might affect avid players of such games in that regard. " Why do you propose that? What evidence suggests that to you?
I don't think shooting people in a videogame is anything like shooting people in real life.
Yeah frankly the idea that shooting guns in a game prepares you to fire them for real is hilarious to me. I grew up playing shooters, but the first time I fired a rifle I was so shocked by the sensation that it triggered a panic attack. I mean, that's an extreme reaction, but the point is the two actions are exactly nothing alike.
And that's just the mechanical act and doesn't take into account the psychological aspect of intentionally wounding or killing a human. Bizarrely, most people who play videogames can actually distinguish between a graphical representation of a human and the real thing.
Firearms simulators are a training method defense forces and police all around the world already apply, so these professionals do definitely see value in conditioning their personnel with what essentially is a high tech light gun shooter. Who's to say that conditioning one's brain to aim down virtual sights and shoot to kill virtual humanoids does not affect a person's (re)actions in real life?
I'm not saying just being a player of authentic first person perspective military shooters makes just anyone a *better* soldier, but if you'd take a platoon of soldiers fresh out of bootcamp, who have each played thousands of hours of online multiplayer games like Battlefield or Call of Duty, and have another platoon of newly minted soldiers who didn't play videogames at all, there might be a significant statistical difference in terms of hits fired at the end of their deployment. I propose that the avid videogame players would be less likely to turn out to be *conscientious objectors*, because the conditioning they've subjected themselves to by playing authentic first person shooters. I think the mental conditioning, and to a lesser degree the endlessly repeated feat of skill of taking aim and shooting to kill in virutal space are likely to override any hesitation.
That's the question that I'm asking. As a player who has played a significant amount of such games, anecdotally, I totally believe such a study would yield actionable results. I suspect soldiers and police agents who play lots of first person shooters may have a lower aversion to shooting to kill.
Also, I'll once again post this in regard to XBox Controllers and modern warfare...
Comics are not interactive though. That's a huge difference. The muscle memory of flipping pages isn't quite like the hand eye coordination needed to play classic videogames. Virtual reality interactions will be even closer to simulating the real action of firing a gun, for example.
The same argument was made with movies. "Oh but comics are just pictures. Movies look real." Yeah, and that doesn't matter because we can still tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Turns out, the fact that video games are interactive doesn't really change that. Even as they get more photorealistic, we're still very aware that what we're doing is fake.
So you'd wager that a soldier who has received 10,000+ hours of firearm simulator training would statistically have the same hit/fire ratio as a soldier who has zero hours of firearm simulator training? I'd think it would definitely make a statistically significant difference.
What makes videogames so different from a firearms simulator? Wouldn't you at least consider that playing 10,000+ hours of Battlefield might have a statistically significant impact on a soldier or policeman too? And if not, then certainly you'd agree that the upcoming VR-revolution will bring games close enough to firearms simulators for me to make that case.
Almost nothing! Firearms simulators would similarly not make someone more willing to kill.
Wait, I thought your argument was that videogames make us more willing/able to kill someone. This is a completely different argument. Accuracy at shooting is a completely different thing and yes, the videogames would make a difference because videogames have been scientifically proven to improve reflexes and hand-eye coordination. They can also make you a better driver, pilot, surgeon, or anything else that requires split-second reactions or precision movement. But that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. In your example these are both soldiers, who are conditioned both by training and by the nature of the job they are doing, to shoot guns at things. The psychological aspect of killing doesn't factor in at all.
As for your VR example: sure, it would have the same impact as going to a shooting range. Which is to say, it will improve your skill with the weapon, but it won't have any more of a psychological effect on you than owning and using the real deal would.
Let me tell you about a fateful day where I went into a store selling clay pots, and I couldn't stop myself from smashing all of them.
Did you find a heart piece?
Well, they can't send a bunch of drunk uncles over every time you're playing.
What they need is to add a scent generator to the Kinect so you can smell the entire field dressing process.
Almost, but right before I could I was attacked from all sides by a flock of chickens
We live in an age where-in soldiers could literally kill hostile combatants with modified Xbox 360 controllers. Many current military drones are operated with gamepads. It's very likely that such a thing has already happend, it's probably even quite commonplace.
Will to kill? I'm talking about conditioning overriding the lack of will to kill, not that games instill the will. How often do you aim down sights and pull the trigger in 10,000 hours of practice? A whole lot. It becomes second nature. It just happens.
It seems to be in our nature not wanting to kill each other. With extensive conditioning however, I think the act of doing so can be so mechanical, a muscle memory thing, that the hit fire ratio would statistically improve. I think that first person shooter videogames do provide relevant mental and muscle memory conditioning, despite how different it is from the real act. Also - with VR, the act of shooting guns in games inches ever closer to the real thing.