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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1998)
Expert compares violent television to militarv tactics The founder of ‘killology’ says TV and video violence have psychological influence on children By Tricia Schwennesen Oregon Daily Emerald Violent television programs and video games are training children to kill in the same fashion the mili tary trains soldiers to kill, retired Lt. Col. David Grossman said. "The single most psychological ly toxic thing to give people is vio lence,” he said. Grossman shared his views with about 16 students and faculty members Monday in the EMU Ben Linder Room. He is the founder of killology, the study of the psycho logical effects of killing. He was a West Point psychology instructor and wrote the book “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learn ing to Kill in War and Society.” The University’s Institute on Vio lence and Destructive Behavior sponsored his lecture. There are four stages of “train ing” that children get through tele i vision and interactive point-and shoot video games, Grossman said. These are the same conditioned re flex skills that a soldier or a police officer receives in training. The first stage is traumatization and brutalization that comes with the shock of being exposed to vio lence, such as the humiliation a new recruit faces in boot camp. Soldiers are programed to em brace two values, discipline and violence, so in times of war the idea of killing is an automatic re sponse, Grossman said. The second stage is classical conditioning. “It’s like Pavlov’s dog,” Gross man said. “We’re training our chil dren to laugh and derive pleasure in response to death and violence.” The third stage, operant train ing, is where killing has become a conditioned response. The last stage is social learning through role models. Children learn to observe and imitate violence through televi sion and movie heroes such as Rambo, Freddy, Jason and Xena, he said. “Ultimately, the reason why networks pump so much violence into our children is because the vi olence is physically addictive in children,” he said. Children experience hormonal and adrenal effects as a result of vi olence, Grossman said. “If you knew tapioca pudding increased the level of violence 45 percent in young children, you wouldn’t have it anywhere near your home," he said. But children continue to watch hours upon hours of television, he said. Grossman said the one constant variable in juvenile violent crime in this country and others includ ing Canada, Japan, Scotland and China, is the impact of television violence and video games. “It is an irrefutable fact that TV is at least 50 percent responsible for the violence in the world,” Grossman said. Ashleigh Harris, a senior at South Eugene High School, said she agrees with Grossman, but she said family background also plays a part in youth violence. “At the same time where televi sion can be harmful, it can be edu cational too," said Harris, who at tended Grossman’s speech. To comprehend the magnitude of violent crime, people need to keep in mind the number of peo ple saved because of advances in medical technology, Grossman said. If society had 1940-level tech nology today, the murder rate would be 10 times higher, Gross man said. Instead of looking at the murder rate as an indicator of violent crime, a better indicator is the rate of people attempting to kill one another, the aggravated assault rate, he said. In 1957, the rate of aggravated assaults was 60 per 100,000 peo ple. That rate has increased sev enfold to 440 per 100,000 people by the middle of this decade, he said. With this increase, three things need to be done to stop and con front the problem of violence in children, he said. “Children need protection. They should be confronted when they laugh and cheer at violence, and we should prevent them from learning the motor skills to point and shoot,” Grossman said. The battle with television vio lence is similar to the more recent battle with tobacco companies, he said. “The information we have link ing TV violence to real world vio lence is better than what we have linking tobacco to cancer," Gross man said. “When we finally do hold the networks accountable for their actions and we will, it will destroy their market shares.” Education coupled with legisla tion is the place to begin fighting the increase in juvenile violence, he said. "Families and communities need to offer alternatives to chil dren,” said Jeff Sprague, co-director of the University Institute on Vio lence and Destructive Behavior. 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