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

by Dave Grossman

The Milgram Factors Milgram’s famous studies of killing behavior in laboratory conditions (the willingness of subjects to engage in behavior that they believed was killing a fellow subject) identified three primary situational variables that influence or enable killing behavior; in this model I have called these (1) the demands of authority, (2) group absolution (remarkably similar to the concept of diffusion of responsibility), and (3) the distance from the victim. Each of these variables can be further “operationalized” as follows: Demands of Authority - Proximity of the obedience-demanding authority figure to the subject - Subject’s subjective respect for the obedience-demanding authority figure - Intensity of the obedience-demanding authority figure’s demands of killing behavior - Legitimacy of the obedience-demanding authority figure’s authority and demands