Training for Heat-of-the-Moment Thinking: Ethics Training to Prepare for Operations

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X221088325
• Author: Deanna L. Messervey,Jennifer M. Peach,Waylon H. Dean,Elizabeth A. Nelson
• Date: 01 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X221088325

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(3) 593 –611

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X221088325

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Article

Training for Heat-of-the-

Moment Thinking: Ethics

Training to Prepare for

Operations

Deanna L. Messervey1, Jennifer M. Peach1,

Waylon H. Dean1, and Elizabeth A. Nelson1

Abstract

Military ethics training has tended to focus on imparting ethical attitudes and

on improving deliberative moral decision-making through classroom instruction.

However, military personnel can be exposed to extreme conditions on operations,

which can lead to heat-of-the-moment thinking. Under stress, individuals are more

likely to engage in automatic processing than deliberative processing, and visceral

states such as anger and disgust can increase a person’s risk of behaving unethically.

We propose that military ethics training could be improved by reinforcing classroom

ethics training with interventions to counteract these risk factors. As training

interventions, we recommend incorporating affect-labeling, goal-setting, and

perspective-taking into realistic, pre-deployment training to make moral decision-

making more robust against stress and other emotional experiences typical in

combat. We outline steps researchers and trainers can take to test whether these

interventions have the desired impact on ethical behavior.

Keywords

visceral states, battlefield ethics, military, anger, stress, moral decision-making,

ethical behavior, ethics training

1Department of National Defence, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Corresponding Author:

Deanna L. Messervey, Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis, Department of

National Defence, 101 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0K2.

Email: Deanna.Messervey@forces.gc.ca

1088325AFSXXX10.1177/0095327X221088325Armed Forces & Society XX(X)Messervey et al.

research-article2022

594 Armed Forces & Society 49(3)

Militaries foster ethical and professional standards primarily through classroom

instruction in organizational values, attitudes, and moral decision-making1 (K. Davis,

2016; McMaster, 2009; Robinson et al., 2008). A meta-analysis by Steele et al.

(2016) of ethics training programs showed that military ethics training mainly

focuses on moral reasoning and deliberative ethical decision-making; thus, the abil-

ity of military personnel to make ethical decisions will depend on their ability to

engage in deliberative, effortful processing when ethical situations arise. The review

further revealed that the efficacy of military ethics training has only been assessed

once in theater under combat conditions (i.e., Warner et al., 2011).

We propose that the near-exclusive reliance on imparting attitudes and moral rea-

soning skills represents a blind spot in military ethics training because military per-

sonnel are routinely exposed to high levels of stress and experiences likely to evoke

visceral responses (De Graaff et al., 2016; Lorber & Garcia, 2010), both of which can

affect the deliberative decision-making process and ethical behavior. Findings from

the MHAT (2006, 2008) studies suggest that the experience of strong visceral states

and the high level of stress typical of military operations are risk factors for unethical

behavior. According to MHAT IV (2006), for example, military personnel who had

engaged in some form of unethical behavior reported higher levels of anger than

those who had not. Consistent with research showing that anger and disgust can

increase unethical behavior (Buckels & Trapnell, 2013; Motro et al., 2016), a similar

pattern of strong emotions runs through the reports on high-profile incidents of

unethical conduct in cases in the United Kingdom and Canada (Baha Mousa Inquiry,

2011; Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia,

1997; Messervey, 2013).

In this article, we draw on work conducted within the Canadian Armed Forces

(CAF) on the effect of stress and especially visceral states on the moral decision-

making of military personnel on operations (Messervey et al., 2021). This focus on

stress and visceral states makes this model well-suited to understanding moral deci-

sion-making on operations. We begin by looking at current ethics training and its

effectiveness. We show that models of moral decision-making do not account for the

role of stress and visceral states, and only one study has looked at the effectiveness

of ethics training on the behavior of deployed personnel. We then synthesize research

on the effects of stress and visceral states, and propose training interventions for

reducing the effects of these factors on the decision-making of military personnel.

Proposed interventions include perspective-taking, goal-setting, and affective label-

ing. We outline what these interventions would look like in training, and how to

measure whether they are effective.

Does Ethics Training Work in the Real World?

In general, military ethics training is classroom-based, focusing on teaching ethical

attitudes, principles, and rules and how to reason through moral dilemmas, scenarios,

and case studies in classroom settings (e.g., U.S. Army Center for the Army Profession