A Playstation Mentality to Killing? Adverse Psychological Consequences in Drone Pilots and the Stigmatization thereof in the Military

Abstract

Since the start of the 21st century, drones are increasingly used for military purposes. There have been concerns that the work of drone pilots resembles a video game and it has been argued that drone pilots are less likely to develop mental health problems than other service members. Such an assumption could increase stigmatization but empirical research is lacking. For this explorative study, 11 respondents were interviewed. They were purposefully sampled from the United States, the Netherlands, and Israel because of their insight into the working environment of drone pilots. These respondents included scholars, a therapist, and military personnel. They suggested that drone pilots do face mental health problems because of their work and that due to their distance to the battlefield, stigmatization of these problems is more likely. These findings, however, are nuanced by differences across countries and units.