Military Psychology

ISSN: 0899-5605 (Print) 1532-7876 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hmlp20

Decision Making by Military Students Under

Severe Stress

Rolf P. Larsen

To cite this article: Rolf P. Larsen (2001) Decision Making by Military Students Under Severe
Stress, Military Psychology, 13:2, 89-98, DOI: 10.1207/S15327876MP1302_02

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327876MP1302_02

Published online: 17 Nov 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 39

View related articles

Citing articles: 5 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hmlp20
 MILITARY PSYCHOLOGY, 2001, 13(2), 89–98
Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Decision Making by Military Students

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Under Severe Stress

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Rolf P. Larsen
Norwegian Military Academy
Oslo, Norway

The object of this experiment was to study how young, severely stressed, sleep-de-
prived military students react and make decisions when put in a situation where the
targets they are ordered to fire at with live ammunition suddenly turn out to be human
beings and not humanoid dummies. In this experiment, 59% of the students (1st or
2nd lieutenants) fired their weapons and 41% did not. All of the 41% who did not fire
said they noticed people in the target area and therefore did not fire, but only one of
them tried to warn the others to stop firing. The results of the study show that the ma-
jority of these young, severely stressed, sleep-deprived military students fired, and of
those who did hold their fire, most did not warn others to do the same.

How do sleep-deprived and severely stressed military students react and make de-
cisions when put in a situation where the targets they are ordered to fire at with live
ammunition suddenly turn out to be real human beings?
It is well known that prolonged sleep deprivation affects people’s ability to
solve problems and make decisions. Specifically, the ability to think clearly is re-
duced, and the thinking process becomes rigid. People also tend to become more
passive, less outgoing, and less searching and curious. They also tend to be disori-
ented, feel helpless, have problems fully understanding what is going on, and have
problems making valid decisions (Mitchel & Bray, 1989; Weisæth, 1982; Whyte,
1989). With prolonged sleep deprivation, participants also tend to experience
pseudoillusions or real illusions and hallucinations, especially during nighttime
(Haslam & Abraham, 1987; Mullaney, Fleck, Okudaira, & Kripke, 1985;
Mullaney, Kripke, Fleck, & Johnson, 1983a, 1983b). This has been repeatedly ob-
served during continuous operations exercises including the Combat Training

Requests for reprints should be sent to Rolf P. Larsen, Norwegian Military Academy, P.O. Box 42,
N–0517 Oslo, Norway.
 90 LARSEN

Course, which has been a required part of the Norwegian Military Academy’s reg-
ular training program for several years.
For example, at the beginning of the week-long exercise, with almost no sleep
and experiencing a high level of physical stress, the students tended to interpret
their hallucinations (usually starting on the third night) as real. However, by the
end of the week when the students became more accustomed to these visions, they
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

often interpreted unexpected real events as hallucinations (Opstad, 1995). Because

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

this may seriously impair their functioning due to their difficulty differentiating
between real and unreal phenomena, they may be completely unfit for keeping
watch and performing other surveillance tasks as well as recording even distinct
signals. Although simple and well-learned physical tasks such as weapons han-
dling suffer little, there seems to be a rapid general degeneration in the cognitive or
psychological area (Englund, Ryman, Naitoh, & Hogdon, 1985; Haslam, 1984;
Haslam & Abraham, 1987; D. C. Johnson, 1982; L. C. Johnson & Naitoh, 1974;
Krueger, 1989, 1991; Opstad, 1995; Opstad, Ekanger, Nummestad, & Raabe,
1978; Pasnau, Naitoh, Stier, & Kollar, 1968; Waldum & Huser, 1974).
It is difficult to find situations in which experiments of this kind can be carried
out in “real-life situations.” One such situation, however, is the week-long Combat
Training Course all military students take at the Norwegian Military Academy.
The students are officers in their early to mid 20s with a minimum of 2 years of
military training (attendance at the noncommissioned officers training school with
at least 1 year of service as sergeants). Some have considerably more experience
and may have been working several years with the military on contract terms; in
that case, these students have reached the rank of second or first lieutenant by the
time they enter the Military Academy’s basic 2-year training program.
The aim of the Combat Training Course is for students to attempt to function
under extreme stress in a simulated wartime situation where they experience short
deadlines, suddenly changing situations, a constant schedule of different activities,
sleep deprivation, lack of rest, isolation, and extreme noise level (including “war-
like noise”). They are also put through a simulated prisoner of war situation and
have no advance knowledge of what is going on or what the outcome will be.
The Combat Training Course where this experiment took place was given in
June at the end of the student’s 1st year at the Academy. During the first 5 days of
the exercise, the students were denied sleep in order for them to push their limits
and experience the effects of sleep deprivation and extreme physical stress. To pre-
vent them from falling asleep in shorter, more quiet periods, air raids were simu-
lated. Apart from short “microsleep” periods (sometimes taken while they were
standing) and what the students managed to take when unnoticed in short breaks
between missions, it can be assumed that they did not sleep at all during the first 5
nights. The first scheduled sleeping period was for 4 hr on the 6th night preceding
an over-the-fjord-raid exercise during which the students were to make a rapid and
stealthy raid on a seafront fortress using small rubber Zodiac rafts.
 DECISION MAKING BY MILITARY STUDENTS 91

This study took place during the 5th night of the exercise. Because this experi-
ment adjoined the regularly scheduled training (in this case, a raid on a camp), it
was not possible to introduce variances to the students’ training schedules. There-
fore, no control groups were run.
The aim of this experiment was to study how young military students react
when they are put in a situation that suddenly turns out to be more complicated and
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

dangerous than anticipated and that requires them to make split-second decisions
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

regarding the life and death of others.

DESIGN AND METHOD

As an integrated part of the exercise, an experiment was conducted as a raid on a

camp. The students were organized into a platoon and divided into five teams with
eight to nine persons in each team. The “experimental intervention,” or raid, was
conducted on five separate occasions. That is, there was a 15-min interval between
each experiment so that there would be no communication between the teams.
Also, the teams were not in sight of each other during the experiment.
The role of team leader was rotated among the students on a daily basis so that
most of them would experience the differences between being a leader and a fol-
lower. All teams were closely supervised by a number of cadre instructors on a ro-
tating basis. The supervising officers gave the teams different tasks according to
the preplanned schedule and were only to interfere to prevent accidents and serious
injuries. The student team leaders did all the necessary planning and organizing to
carry out the tasks they were given.
On Day 6 of the week-long course, the raid was carried out during the darkest
part of the night. Meanwhile, the students had been kept busy without relief since
Day 1 and were exhausted. Their task was to carry out an attack with live ammuni-
tion on a camp, which consisted of tents, a burning fire, and some very realistic hu-
man-like figures. Some were “sitting” near an open fire, and others were
“standing” in the open or partly hidden behind a tent or some vegetation. However,
instead of firing at human-like targets, often in uniform and made of wood and
cardboard, as military students are usually required to do, the targets this time were
replaced with real humans. Apart from this, the camp was arranged as usual and
made to look as lifelike as possible. A Land Rover was parked on a rough road
crossing the foreground with its motor turned on and its low-beam lights slightly
illuminating the terrain just in front of the camp. In the dim light it was possible to
see the camp and the figures, but difficult to see them clearly.
Before the attack took place, the team hid behind a small hill not far from the tar-
get, but far enough away to prevent the team from seeing the camp. The supervising
officer accompanied the student team leader to the top of the hill, about 150 m from
the camp, from which the team was to form a line to carry out the raid. During the ob-
servation period, those in the camp acting as target figures remained motionless.
 92 LARSEN

Immediately after his visual reconnaissance, the team leader pulled back to the
team, organized the attack, and gave his orders. Ten dummy cartridges were given
to each student, who presumed they were live ammunition. In reality, they were or-
dinary cartridges loaded with sand in place of gunpowder. As an extra precaution,
the firing mechanism (bolt) was removed from their AG3 assault rifles during a
weapons control check earlier that night. This was done without the students’
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

knowledge, and none of them discovered that the guns had been manipulated in
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

any way.
After having organized the attack and given his orders, the team leader brought
his team into a position where they formed a line. One of the supervising officers
carried a machine gun with blank cartridges to create some additional “battle
noise” when the firing command was given.
As soon as the team was deployed in position and was ready to fire, the target
figures began moving as they would have done in an actual nighttime camp situa-
tion. Some stood up and walked around, others stood up and sat down in another
place, stood up again, and so forth. Movements were pronounced without being
exaggerated and were easily seen from the firing distance of about 150 m away.
(The same people acting as target figures had been there all the time, standing or
seated in a frozen position while being observed by the team leader during his ob-
servation procedure.) Because visibility was sufficient enough for the students to
see that the figures were real people and not ordinary human-like firing targets,
two questions arose: Would the students fire (pull the trigger) or not when they no-
ticed people in the target area, and would they warn the others to stop firing and
thereby prevent a disaster?
During the exercise, each supervisor observed two students who, when the
command was given, started firing. After the rounds were fired and the attack on
the camp completed, the supervisors examined all guns to determine whether or
not the students had pulled the trigger and immediately interviewed the students
using a questionnaire (see Figure 1). One of the participants had to wait while the
other was being interviewed, but all were kept apart to prevent communication be-
tween them. The interviews took about 15 min each; this procedure was carried out
individually for each of the five teams. After their interviews, the teams carried on
with their other assignments until the Combat Training Course ended on Day 7 of
the course at 1530 hr.
When the 7-day course was completed, the students (all teams) were kept to-
gether as a large group, looking after their equipment and receiving medical exam-
inations. All meals were eaten together with their supervisors, and the following
night all the students and the supervisors slept on mattresses in a large gym to keep
the students under close supervision. The next 2 days were used for maintenance
of equipment, debriefings, and a variety of reports as to what had happened to learn
as much as possible from the exercise. Ethical questions as well as personal reac-
tions were discussed at these debriefing sessions to resolve any unfinished issues.
 DECISION MAKING BY MILITARY STUDENTS 93
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

FIGURE 1 Interview questions.

RESULTS

Twenty-six students (59%) out of 44 fired, and 18 students (41%) held their fire
(see Table 1). Of those who fired, many pulled the trigger several times and were fu-
rious at the apparent malfunction of their weapon (due to the removal of the gun-
powder from the cartridges).
Fifteen of the 26 students who did fire reported seeing nothing unusual in the
target area when the order to fire was given. A few of these claimed that after the
 94 LARSEN

TABLE 1
Different Reactions

Reaction n

Noticed nothing unusual in target area and fired 15

Noticed “people in target area” and still fired 11
Did not fire because of “people in the target area,” but only
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

one tried to warn the others to stop the firing 18 (41%)

Note. N = 44.

firing took place they had noticed “movement,” “personnel,” “people in the target
area,” or “something unusual.” When being asked after the incident how they
viewed their actions, words such as “insecure,” “confused,” “chaotic thinking,”
and “the feeling of having made a serious blunder” were used. Some of the partici-
pants also said they did not perceive the targets as people, only as “very natural
dummies,” or said they “simply did not see the situation clearly.”
Eleven students (42% of those who pulled the trigger) admitted that they had
noticed something unusual in the target area. Being asked what they had noticed,
words like “movements,” “living humans,” “glowing faces,” and “moving people”
were used. Six of them admitted that they had been in doubt or were insecure about
whether or not to fire. However, all 11 of them followed orders and fired. When
asked why they fired, even when they had some doubt about it, reasons such as
“trusted security control” (3 participants), “orders were given” (6 participants),
and “battle noise” (1 participant) were given. One of the participants claimed that
he discovered the cartridges were “altered” when they were handed out, but did not
tell the others. Being asked how they assessed their course of action afterwards,
words such as “not sure” (4 participants), “wrong reaction” (2 participants),
“should have warned the others to stop the firing” (3 participants), and “OK” (2
participants) were used.
Sixteen of the 18 students who did not fire said they did not pull the trigger be-
cause they noticed people in the target area. Eight of them also said that they were in
doubt as to whether or not to fire. Other reasons given for not firing were “no reason
to fire at people in peacetime,” “they could have been our own,” and “I must have
misunderstood something.” Asked how they assessed their course of action, nearly
all of them said that it was correct not to fire. A few admitted that they should have
warned the others and tried to stop the firing but that they had refrained from doing so.

DISCUSSION

The experiment was successfully carried out and none of the students suspected in
advance that this was a manipulated situation, despite the fact that one of them
claimed afterwards to have discovered “altered cartridges.”
 DECISION MAKING BY MILITARY STUDENTS 95

That quite a few students did not fire when they noticed people in the target area
is not surprising. Neither is it surprising that quite a few obeyed orders to fire, de-
spite having noticed “irregularities in the target area,” and therefore having been in
doubt as to whether or not to fire. The tendency for students to follow guidelines or
to do what they are told by established authorities such as a supervisor or security
officer is well established (Milgram, 1963, 1965). It is also understandable that
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

many students, given the poor lighting conditions and the stress of this situation,
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

misread the camp setting or saw nothing unusual until afterwards.

An interesting finding in this material, however, was the tendency for the stu-
dents to keep to themselves the decision as to whether or not to fire, and to over-
look the subsequent consequences of doing so. According to my observations,
only one person made a hesitant and half-hearted attempt to warn the other team
members, an observation that was not recorded on the interview sheets.
Most of the students who did not fire (did not pull the trigger) recognized that
there were people in the target area and knew that if they themselves, or other team-
mates, fired at these people, some of them might be severely injured or killed. Al-
though the students regarded their not firing as correct when they were asked about
this after the incident, they did nothing actively to stop a possible fatal disaster.
Directly following the incident, a few of the participants said they should have
warned the others and were shocked by their own failure or incapacity to do so. A
few students were rather concerned and thoughtful about this, but apart from these
few reactions, ethical considerations did not seem to be evident at this point. When
the matter was discussed in a debriefing session later it was, however, quite clear
that many of them were surprised by their own inaction to stop the other students
from firing.
In this experiment the students were placed in a situation that could happen at
any time during a military mission. Unlike Milgram’s (1963, 1965) exercise to
study how far the participants would go in inflicting pain on others, the students
were not under continuous pressure where they were forced to react unethically or
even illegally. The order shouting “fire” and the firing of a signal light were given
only once in order to have all the students in a team fire at the same time.
Another clear difference between the two studies is that while Milgram’s
(1963) participants were recruited from the surrounding communities and not
screened or tested, the students in this study were academy officers who had been
thoroughly screened, tested, trained, and had been living together with their cadre
(myself included) for about a year, so that those conducting the study knew them
very well. In addition, the students were debriefed after the experiment or exercise
to provide closure to the experience and continued to live together with me and my
colleagues for at least another year. Close follow-up was therefore possible if nec-
essary, but during this time we did not find any psychological disturbances or
problems that could be traced back to this experience. Milgram’s works did not re-
port any such long-term follow-up.
 96 LARSEN

Pedagogically speaking, it is somewhat important that military students learn to

react correctly in a situation like this and not automatically follow all given orders,
and this was a learning experience that presumably the students will not easily for-
get. Norwegian officers are trained not to follow illegal orders (e.g., to kill civilians)
and to be aware that situations may change suddenly and drastically at any time. For
example, when the situation suddenly changes and appears to be quite different from
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

what was planned, officers are instructed, if time allows, to call back to headquarters
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

or their superior for new orders or to request permission to divert from the orders
given earlier. If necessary, they are, “in the commander’s spirit,” to decide on their
own as to what immediate action to take and to report back immediately or as soon as
possible if they are not following original orders. Norwegian officers are well
trained in this kind of procedure and are rewarded, not punished for their initiative in
such situations. This procedure has been strongly stressed in the officer training
since the 1986 disaster that took place in Vassdalen, Norway, in which 16 young sol-
diers died in an avalanche because the platoon commander, even when he found the
situation very dangerous, followed the order for his soldiers to proceed that had been
given by someone who did not know the situation on the spot.
This experiment does not explain why the young students reacted the way they
did, but it seems very likely that the strong pressure and stress they experienced af-
fected their thinking and action. Because sleep deprivation degrades the complex-
ity and speed of thinking processes, whereas motor skills are preserved, the
military students in this study were able to fire their weapons (a motor skill) but
were unable to recognize a situation in which they should not fire and warn others
not to fire. The latter are both complex mental tasks requiring integration of infor-
mation, anticipation, and situational awareness. This is similar to situations in
which sleep deprivation plays a role in friendly-fire incidents during actual opera-
tions. Soldiers are still able to put the cross hairs on the target and fire accurately,
but they lose their orientation (situational awareness) of the battlefield and can no
longer distinguish friend from foe.
Most of the students seemed more concerned with their own wish to feel and be
perceived as innocent (not killing people) than with avoiding a fatal disaster. In
other words, it is possible that the ability to analyze the situation and think clearly
is affected in such a way that soldiers are unable to fully analyze complex situa-
tions, a finding that is consistent with earlier observations that severely sleep-de-
prived individuals tend to act and think defensively (Belenky, 2000; Opstad, 1995,
and personal communication, March 2000).
It is also possible that group pressure might have influenced the soldiers’ deci-
sions. For example, perhaps some of the participants feared appearing foolish or
not living up to what they believed were others’ expectations. Reduced cognitive
ability due to severe stress and sleep deprivation may play an important part in the
decision making. It is also possible that confusion as to what to do combined with
slowed thinking leads to a delay in the decision to fire until it is too late to do so.
 DECISION MAKING BY MILITARY STUDENTS 97

Slow thinking may explain why some did not fire (first decision) but did not have
time to alert the others (second decision). It is also possible that some of the stu-
dents chose to disregard their doubts as to whether or not to fire, believing they
were hallucinating, despite the fact that one of the students, who did not fire, men-
tioned this.
To clarify these questions, we need additional experiments combined with
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

more extensive in-depth interviews. It may also be of interest to look further into
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

how participants are trained for situations like this when they are under severe
stress and where the situation itself leads to undesired results.

REFERENCES

Belenky, G. L. (2000, March). Coping with the 24-hour society. U.S. Army Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research paper presented at the 4th International Symposium on Fatigue and Transportation, Fre-
mantle, Australia.
Englund, C. E., Ryman, D. H., Naitoh, P., & Hogdon, J. A. (1985). Cognitive performance during suc-
cessive sustained physical work episodes. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Com-
puters, 17, 75–85.
Haslam, D. R. (1984). The military performance of soldiers in sustained operations. Aviation, Space,
and Environmental Medicine, 55, 216–221.
Haslam, D. R., & Abraham, P. (1987). Sleep loss in military performance. In G. L. Belenky (Ed.), Con-
temporary studies in combat psychiatry (pp. 167–184). New York: Greenwood.
Johnson, D. C. (1982). Sleep deprivation and performance. In W. B. Webb (Ed.), Biological rhythms,
sleep and performance. New York: Wiley.
Johnson, L. C., & Naitoh, P. (1974). The operational consequences of sleep deprivation and sleep deficit
(NATO AGARDograph No. 193). Paris: NATO Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and De-
velopment. (DTIC No. AD–783 199)
Krueger, G. P. (1989). Sustained work, fatigue, sleep loss and performance. Work and Stress, 3,
129–141.
Krueger, G. P. (1991). Sustained military performance in continuous operations: Combat fatigue, rest
and sleep needs. In R. Gal & A. D. Mangelsdorff (Eds.), Handbook of military psychology (pp.
255–277). Chichester, England: Wiley.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67,
371–378.
Milgram, S. (1965). Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority. Human Relations, 18,
57–76.
Mitchel, J., & Bray, C. (1989). Emergency services stress. Baltimore: Chevron.
Mullaney, D. J., Fleck, P. A., Okudaira, N., & Kripke, D. F. (1985). An automated system for adminis-
tering continuous workload and for measuring sustained continuous performance. Behavior Re-
search Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 17, 16–18.
Mullaney, D. J., Kripke, D. F., Fleck, P. A., & Johnson, L. C. (1983a). Effects of sustained continuous
performance on participants working alone and in pairs. Perception and Motor Skills, 57, 819–832.
Mullaney, D. J., Kripke, D. F., Fleck, P. A., & Johnson, L. C. (1983b). Sleep loss and nap effects on sus-
tained continuous performance. Psychophysiology, 20, 643–651.
Opstad, P. K. (1995). Medical consequences in young men of prolonged physical stress with sleep and
energy deficiency (NDRE Publication No. 95–05586). Kjeller, Norway: Norwegian Defence Re-
search Establishment.
 98 LARSEN

Opstad, P. K., Ekanger, R., Nummestad, M., & Raabe, N. (1978). Performance, mood and clinical
symptoms in man exposed to prolonged, severe physical work and sleep deprivation. Aviation,
Space, and Environmental Medicine, 49, 1065–1073.
Pasnau, R. O., Naitoh, P., Stier, S., & Kollar, E. J. (1968). The psychological effects of 205 hours of sleep
deprivation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 18, 496–505.
Waldum, H. L., & Huser, P. O. (1974). Stress-reaksjoner under usedvanlig harde militærøvelser
ifredstid [Stress reactions during extremely hard military exercises in peacetime]. Sanitetsnytt, 1,
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

39–56.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Weisæth, L. (1982). Stressreaksjoner og gruppedynamiske faktorer kan forstyrre en rasjonell

beslutningsprosess [Stress reactions and group dynamic factors may disturb a rational decision pro-
cess]. Arbeidsgiveren, 60(3), 46–49.
Whyte, G. (1989). Groupthink reconsidered. Academy of Management Review, 14, 40–56.