On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Author(s)	Dave Grossman
Publisher	Back Bay Books
Publication date	1996
Pages	400
ISBN	0-316-33000-0
OCLC Number	36544198
Followed by	On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace

On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society is a book by Lt.Col. Dave Grossman exploring the psychology of the act of killing and the military and law enforcement establishments' attempt to understand and deal with the consequences of killing.

The book is heavily based on SLA Marshall's studies from World War II, which proposed that contrary to popular perception^[1], the majority of soldiers in war do not ever fire their weapons and that this is due to an innate resistance to killing. Based on Marshall's studies the military instituted training measures to break down this resistance and successfully raised soldier's firing rates to over ninety percent during the war in Vietnam.

Grossman however points out that there are great psychological costs that weigh heavily on the combat soldier or police officer who kills if they are not mentally prepared for what may happen; if their actions (killing) are not supported by their commanders and/or peers; and if they are unable to justify their actions (or if no one else justifies the actions for them).

References

1. ^ Robert Engen. "Killing for Their Country: A New Look At 'Killology' (Canadian Military Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2)". http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no2/16-engen-eng.asp. Retrieved 2011-05-08. "As a military historian, I am instinctively skeptical of any work or theory that claims to overturn all existing scholarship – indeed, overturn an entire academic discipline – in one fell swoop...[however] Lieutenant Colonel Grossman’s appeals to biology and psychology are flawed, and that the bulwark of his historical evidence – S.L.A. Marshall’s assertion that soldiers do not fire their weapons – can be verifiably disproven." 

See also

• Psychology of combat
• Killology