Mind control
Encyclopedia
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative
methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated". The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
, Jacques Ellul
sustains that the "principal aims of these psychological methods is to destroy a man's habitual patterns, space, hours, milieu, and so on."
Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda
and torture
techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs).
records its earliest known English-language usage of brainwashing in an article by Edward Hunter in New Leader published on 7 October 1950. During the Korean War
, Hunter, who worked at the time both as a journalist and as a U.S. intelligence agent, wrote a series of books and articles on the theme of Chinese brainwashing.
The Chinese term 洗腦 (xǐ năo, literally "wash brain
") was originally used to describe methodologies of coercive persuasion used under the Maoist regime in China, which aimed to transform individuals with a reactionary imperialist mindset
into "right-thinking" members of the new Chinese social system. To that end the regime developed techniques that would break down the psychic
integrity of the individual with regard to information processing, information retained in the mind and individual values. Chosen techniques included dehumanizing of individuals by keeping them in filth, sleep deprivation
, partial sensory deprivation
, psychological harassment, inculcation of guilt
and group social pressure
. The term pun
ned on the Taoist custom of "cleansing/washing the heart/mind" (洗心, xǐ xīn) prior to conducting certain ceremonies or entering certain holy places.
Hunter and those who picked up the Chinese term used it to explain why, unlike in earlier wars, a relatively high percentage of American
GIs defected to the enemy side after becoming prisoners-of-war. It was believed that the Chinese in North Korea used such techniques to disrupt the ability of captured troops to effectively organize
and resist their imprisonment. British radio operator Robert W. Ford
and British army Colonel James Carne
also claimed that the Chinese subjected them to brainwashing techniques during their war-era imprisonment.
After the war, two studies of the repatriation
of American prisoners of war by Robert Jay Lifton
and by Edgar Schein
concluded that brainwashing (called "thought reform" by Lifton and "coercive persuasion" by Schein) had a transient effect. Both researchers found that the Chinese mainly used coercive persuasion to disrupt the ability of the prisoners to organize and maintain morale and hence to escape. By placing the prisoners under conditions of physical and social deprivation
and disruption, and then by offering them more comfortable situations such as better sleeping quarters, better food, warmer clothes or blankets, the Chinese did succeed in getting some of the prisoners to make anti-American
statements. Nevertheless, the majority of prisoners did not actually adopt Communist beliefs, instead behaving as though they did in order to avoid the plausible threat of extreme physical abuse. Both researchers also concluded that such coercive persuasion succeeded only on a minority of POWs, and that the end-result of such coercion remained very unstable, as most of the individuals reverted to their previous condition soon after they left the coercive environment. In 1961 they both published books expanding on these findings. Schein published Coercive Persuasion and Lifton published Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. More recent writers including Mikhail Heller have suggested that Lifton's model of brainwashing may throw light on the use of mass propaganda in other communist states such as the former Soviet Union
.
In a summary published in 1963, Edgar Schein
gave a background history of the precursor origins of the brainwashing phenomenon:
Mind-control theories from the Korean War era came under criticism in subsequent years. According to forensic psychologist Dick Anthony
, the CIA invented the concept of "brainwashing" as a propaganda strategy to undercut communist claims that American POWs in Korean communist camps had voluntarily expressed sympathy for communism. Anthony stated that definitive research demonstrated that fear
and duress
, not brainwashing, caused western POWs to collaborate. He argued that the books of Edward Hunter (whom he identified as a secret CIA "psychological warfare specialist" passing as a journalist) pushed the CIA brainwashing theory onto the general public. He further asserted that for twenty years, starting in the early 1950s, the CIA and the Defense Department
conducted secret research (notably including Project MKULTRA
) in an attempt to develop practical brainwashing techniques, and that their attempt failed.
The U.S. military and government laid charges of "brainwashing" in an effort to undermine detailed confessions made by U.S. military personnel to war crimes, including biological warfare, against the Koreans. (The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets From the Early Cold War, by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman at York University, Toronto; Indiana University Press, 1998).
to religion
. From the 1960s an increasing number of American youths started to come into contact with new religious movements (NRM), and some who converted suddenly adopted beliefs and behaviors that differed greatly from those of their families and friends; in some cases they neglected or even broke contact with their loved ones. In the 1970s the anti-cult movement
applied mind control theories to explain these sudden and seemingly dramatic religious conversion
s. The media was quick to follow suit, and social scientists sympathetic to the anti-cult movement, who were usually psychologists, developed more sophisticated models of brainwashing. While some psychologists were receptive to these theories, sociologists were for the most part skeptical of their ability to explain conversion to NRMs. In the years that followed, brainwashing controversies developed between NRM members, various academic researchers, and cult critics.
and member retention have been proposed that link mind control to NRMs, and particularly those religious movements referred to as "cult
s" by their critics. These theories resemble the original political brainwashing theories with some minor changes. Philip Zimbardo
discusses mind control as "the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes", and he suggests that any human being is susceptible to such manipulation. In a 1999 book, Robert Lifton also applied his original ideas about thought reform to Aum Shinrikyo
, concluding that in this context thought reform was possible without violence or physical coercion. Margaret Singer
, who also spent time studying the political brainwashing of Korean prisoners of war, agreed with this conclusion: in her book Cults in Our Midst she describes six conditions which would create an atmosphere in which thought reform is possible.
Approaching the subject from the perspective of neuroscience
and social psychology
, Kathleen Taylor
suggests that manipulation of the prefrontal cortex
activates "brainwashing", rendering a person more susceptible to black-and-white thinking. Meanwhile, in Influence, Science and Practice, social psychologist Robert Cialdini
argues that mind control is possible through the covert exploitation of the unconscious rules that underlie and facilitate healthy human social interactions. He states that common social rules can be used to prey upon the unwary. Using categories, he offers specific examples of both mild and extreme mind control (both one on one and in groups), notes the conditions under which each social rule is most easily exploited for false ends, and offers suggestions on how to resist such methods.
as a method to liberate group members from apparent "brainwashing". However the practice of coercive deprogramming fell out of favor in the West and was largely superseded by exit counseling
. Exit counselor Steven Hassan
promotes what he calls the "BITE" model in his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
(2000). The BITE model describes various controls over human behavior, information, thought and emotion. Hassan claims that cults recruit and retain members by using, among other things, systematic deception, behavior modification
, the withholding of information, and emotionally intense persuasion techniques (such as the induction of phobia
s). He refers to all of these techniques collectively as "mind control".
Critics of mind control theories caution against the broader implications of these conversion models. In the 1998 Enquete Commission report on "So-called Sects and Psychogroups" in Germany, a review was made of the BITE model. The report concluded that "control of these areas of action is an inevitable component of social interactions in a group or community. The social control that is always associated with intense commitment to a group must therefore be clearly distinguished from the exertion of intentional, methodical influence for the express purpose of manipulation." Indeed virtually all of these models share the notion that converts are in fact innocent "victims" of mind-control techniques. Hassan suggests that even the cult members manipulating the new converts may themselves be sincerely misled people. By considering NRM members innocent "victims" of psychological coercion these theories open the door for psychological treatments
.
Sociologists including Eileen Barker
have criticized theories of conversion precisely because they function to justify costly interventions such as deprogramming or exit counseling. For similar reasons, Barker and other scholars have criticized mental health
professionals like Margaret Singer
for accepting lucrative expert witness jobs in court cases involving NRMs. Singer was perhaps the most publicly notable scholarly proponent of "cult" brainwashing theories, and she became the focal point of the relative demise of those same theories within her discipline.
observes that if the NRMs had access to powerful brainwashing techniques, one would expect that NRMs would have high growth rates, yet in fact most have not had notable success in recruitment. Most adherents participate for only a short time, and the success in retaining members is limited. For this and other reasons, sociologists including David Bromley and Anson Shupe
consider the idea that "cults" are brainwashing American youth to be "implausible." In addition to Bromley, Thomas Robbins
, Dick Anthony
, Eileen Barker
, Newton Maloney, Massimo Introvigne
, John Hall, Lorne Dawson, Anson Shupe
, Gordon Melton, Marc Galanter
, Saul Levine (amongst other scholars researching NRMs) have argued and established to the satisfaction of courts, of relevant professional associations and of scientific communities that there exists no scientific theory, generally accepted and based upon methodologically sound research, that supports the brainwashing theories as advanced by the anti-cult movement.
Some sociologists disagree with this consensus. Benjamin Zablocki
sees strong indicators of mind control in some NRMs and suggests that the concept should be researched without bias. Stephen A. Kent
has also published several articles about brainwashing. These scholars tend to see no consensus, while what Melton sees as a majority of scholars may regard it as a rejection of brainwashing and of mind control as legitimate theories.
in a California court which decided in 1986 that church practices had been conducted in a psychologically coercive environment and so were not protected by religious freedom guarantees. Others who have tried claiming a "brainwashing defense" for crimes committed while purportedly under mind control, including Patty Hearst
, Steven Fishman
and Lee Boyd Malvo
, have not been successful.
In 1983, the American Psychological Association
(APA) asked Margaret Singer to chair a taskforce called the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control
(DIMPAC) to investigate whether brainwashing or "coercive persuasion" did indeed play a role in recruitment by such movements. Before the taskforce had submitted its final report, the APA submitted on February 10, 1987 an amicus curiæ brief in an ongoing court case related to brainwashing. The brief repudiated Singer's theories on "coercive persuasion" and suggested that brainwashing theories were without empirical
proof. Afterward the APA filed a motion to withdraw its signature from the brief, since Singer's final report had not been completed. However, on May 11, 1987, the APA's Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected the DIMPAC report because the brainwashing theory espoused "lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur", and concluded that "after much consideration, BSERP does not believe that we have sufficient information available to guide us in taking a position on this issue."
Two critical letters from external reviewers Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Jeffery D. Fisher accompanied the rejection memo. The letters criticized "brainwashing" as an unrecognized theoretical concept and Singer's reasoning as so flawed that it was "almost ridiculous." After her findings were rejected, Singer sued the APA in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy" and lost. Benjamin Zablocki
and Alberto Amitrani interpreted the APA's response as meaning that there was no unanimous decision on the issue either way, suggesting also that Singer retained the respect of the psychological community after the incident. Yet her career as an expert witness ended at this time. She was meant to appear with Richard Ofshe
in the 1990 U.S. v. Fishman Case, in which Steven Fishman
claimed to have been under mind control by the Church of Scientology in order to defend himself against charges of embezzlement, but the courts disallowed her testimony. In the eyes of the court, "neither the APA nor the ASA has endorsed the views of Dr. Singer and Dr. Ofshe on thought reform".
After that time U.S. courts consistently rejected testimonies about mind control and manipulation, stating that such theories were not part of accepted mainline science
according to the Frye Standard
(Anthony & Robbins 1992: 5-29) of 1923.
cases, "where one parent is accused of brainwashing the child to reject the other parent, and in child sex abuse cases where one parent is accused of brainwashing the child to make sex abuse accusations against the other parent".
Stephen A. Kent
analyzes and summarizes the use of the brainwashing meme
by non-sociologists in the period 2000-2007, finding the term useful not only in the context of "New Religions/Cults", but equally under the headings of "Teen Behavior Modification Programs; Terrorist Groups; Dysfunctional Corporate Culture; Interpersonal Violence
; and Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong
".
Psychological manipulation
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...
methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated". The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is a landmark work on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher,theologian, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one...
, Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul
Jacques Ellul was a French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society" and the interaction between Christianity and politics....
sustains that the "principal aims of these psychological methods is to destroy a man's habitual patterns, space, hours, milieu, and so on."
Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs).
The Korean War and the origin of brainwashing
The Oxford English DictionaryOxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
records its earliest known English-language usage of brainwashing in an article by Edward Hunter in New Leader published on 7 October 1950. During the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, Hunter, who worked at the time both as a journalist and as a U.S. intelligence agent, wrote a series of books and articles on the theme of Chinese brainwashing.
The Chinese term 洗腦 (xǐ năo, literally "wash brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
") was originally used to describe methodologies of coercive persuasion used under the Maoist regime in China, which aimed to transform individuals with a reactionary imperialist mindset
Mindset
In decision theory and general systems theory, a mindset is a set of assumptions, methods or notations held by one or more people or groups of people which is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices,...
into "right-thinking" members of the new Chinese social system. To that end the regime developed techniques that would break down the psychic
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
integrity of the individual with regard to information processing, information retained in the mind and individual values. Chosen techniques included dehumanizing of individuals by keeping them in filth, sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation is the condition of not having enough sleep; it can be either chronic or acute. A chronic sleep-restricted state can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness and weight loss or weight gain. It adversely affects the brain and cognitive function. Few studies have compared the...
, partial sensory deprivation
Sensory deprivation
Sensory deprivation or perceptual isolation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or hoods and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing respectively, while more complex devices can also cut off the sense of smell, touch,...
, psychological harassment, inculcation of guilt
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
and group social pressure
Peer pressure
Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...
. The term pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
ned on the Taoist custom of "cleansing/washing the heart/mind" (洗心, xǐ xīn) prior to conducting certain ceremonies or entering certain holy places.
Hunter and those who picked up the Chinese term used it to explain why, unlike in earlier wars, a relatively high percentage of American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
GIs defected to the enemy side after becoming prisoners-of-war. It was believed that the Chinese in North Korea used such techniques to disrupt the ability of captured troops to effectively organize
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. A core goal of community organizing is to generate durable power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence...
and resist their imprisonment. British radio operator Robert W. Ford
Robert W. Ford
Robert Webster Ford was a radio operator and British diplomat who worked in Tibet in the 1950s. He was one of the few Westerners to be appointed by the Government of Tibet at the time of independent Tibet, before the Chinese invasion of 1950...
and British army Colonel James Carne
James Carne
Colonel James Power Carne VC DSO was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Early life:...
also claimed that the Chinese subjected them to brainwashing techniques during their war-era imprisonment.
After the war, two studies of the repatriation
Repatriation
Repatriation is the process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...
of American prisoners of war by Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform...
and by Edgar Schein
Edgar Schein
Edgar Henry Schein , a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. He is generally credited with inventing the term...
concluded that brainwashing (called "thought reform" by Lifton and "coercive persuasion" by Schein) had a transient effect. Both researchers found that the Chinese mainly used coercive persuasion to disrupt the ability of the prisoners to organize and maintain morale and hence to escape. By placing the prisoners under conditions of physical and social deprivation
Deprivation
Deprivation may refer to:* Poverty* Relative deprivation* Sleep deprivation* Maternal deprivation...
and disruption, and then by offering them more comfortable situations such as better sleeping quarters, better food, warmer clothes or blankets, the Chinese did succeed in getting some of the prisoners to make anti-American
Anti-Americanism
The term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
statements. Nevertheless, the majority of prisoners did not actually adopt Communist beliefs, instead behaving as though they did in order to avoid the plausible threat of extreme physical abuse. Both researchers also concluded that such coercive persuasion succeeded only on a minority of POWs, and that the end-result of such coercion remained very unstable, as most of the individuals reverted to their previous condition soon after they left the coercive environment. In 1961 they both published books expanding on these findings. Schein published Coercive Persuasion and Lifton published Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. More recent writers including Mikhail Heller have suggested that Lifton's model of brainwashing may throw light on the use of mass propaganda in other communist states such as the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
In a summary published in 1963, Edgar Schein
Edgar Schein
Edgar Henry Schein , a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. He is generally credited with inventing the term...
gave a background history of the precursor origins of the brainwashing phenomenon:
Thought reform contains elements which are evident in Chinese culture (emphasis on interpersonal sensitivity, learning by rote and self-cultivation); in methods of extracting confessions well known in the Papal Inquisition (13th century) and elaborated through the centuries, especially by the Russian secret police; in methods of organizing corrective prisonPrisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
s, mental hospitalMental HospitalMental hospital may refer to:*Psychiatric hospital*hospital in Nepal named Mental Hospital...
s and other institutions for producing value change; in methods used by religious sects, fraternal orders, political elites or primitive societies for converting or initiating new members. Thought reform techniques are consistent with psychological principles but were not explicitly derived from such principles.
Mind-control theories from the Korean War era came under criticism in subsequent years. According to forensic psychologist Dick Anthony
Dick Anthony
Dick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
, the CIA invented the concept of "brainwashing" as a propaganda strategy to undercut communist claims that American POWs in Korean communist camps had voluntarily expressed sympathy for communism. Anthony stated that definitive research demonstrated that fear
Fear
Fear is a distressing negative sensation induced by a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger...
and duress
Duress
In jurisprudence, duress or coercion refers to a situation whereby a person performs an act as a result of violence, threat or other pressure against the person. Black's Law Dictionary defines duress as "any unlawful threat or coercion used... to induce another to act [or not act] in a manner...
, not brainwashing, caused western POWs to collaborate. He argued that the books of Edward Hunter (whom he identified as a secret CIA "psychological warfare specialist" passing as a journalist) pushed the CIA brainwashing theory onto the general public. He further asserted that for twenty years, starting in the early 1950s, the CIA and the Defense Department
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
conducted secret research (notably including Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...
) in an attempt to develop practical brainwashing techniques, and that their attempt failed.
The U.S. military and government laid charges of "brainwashing" in an effort to undermine detailed confessions made by U.S. military personnel to war crimes, including biological warfare, against the Koreans. (The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets From the Early Cold War, by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman at York University, Toronto; Indiana University Press, 1998).
Cults and the shift of focus
After the Korean War, applications of mind control theories in the United States shifted in focus from politicsPolitics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
to religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. From the 1960s an increasing number of American youths started to come into contact with new religious movements (NRM), and some who converted suddenly adopted beliefs and behaviors that differed greatly from those of their families and friends; in some cases they neglected or even broke contact with their loved ones. In the 1970s the anti-cult movement
Anti-cult movement
The anti-cult movement is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
applied mind control theories to explain these sudden and seemingly dramatic religious conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
s. The media was quick to follow suit, and social scientists sympathetic to the anti-cult movement, who were usually psychologists, developed more sophisticated models of brainwashing. While some psychologists were receptive to these theories, sociologists were for the most part skeptical of their ability to explain conversion to NRMs. In the years that followed, brainwashing controversies developed between NRM members, various academic researchers, and cult critics.
Theories of mind control and religious conversion
Over the years various theories of conversionReligious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
and member retention have been proposed that link mind control to NRMs, and particularly those religious movements referred to as "cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
s" by their critics. These theories resemble the original political brainwashing theories with some minor changes. Philip Zimbardo
Philip Zimbardo
Philip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
discusses mind control as "the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes", and he suggests that any human being is susceptible to such manipulation. In a 1999 book, Robert Lifton also applied his original ideas about thought reform to Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese new religious movement. The group was founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway....
, concluding that in this context thought reform was possible without violence or physical coercion. Margaret Singer
Margaret Singer
Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer, was a clinical psychologist and a part-time Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S....
, who also spent time studying the political brainwashing of Korean prisoners of war, agreed with this conclusion: in her book Cults in Our Midst she describes six conditions which would create an atmosphere in which thought reform is possible.
Approaching the subject from the perspective of neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
and social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
, Kathleen Taylor
Kathleen Taylor
Kathleen Taylor is a research scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford.-Education:Taylor attended the University of Oxford where she studied physiology and philosophy...
suggests that manipulation of the prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal cortex
The prefrontal cortex is the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain, lying in front of the motor and premotor areas.This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior...
activates "brainwashing", rendering a person more susceptible to black-and-white thinking. Meanwhile, in Influence, Science and Practice, social psychologist Robert Cialdini
Robert Cialdini
Robert B. Cialdini is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University.He is best known for his popular book on persuasion and marketing, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Influence has sold over 2 million copies and has been translated into twenty-six...
argues that mind control is possible through the covert exploitation of the unconscious rules that underlie and facilitate healthy human social interactions. He states that common social rules can be used to prey upon the unwary. Using categories, he offers specific examples of both mild and extreme mind control (both one on one and in groups), notes the conditions under which each social rule is most easily exploited for false ends, and offers suggestions on how to resist such methods.
Deprogramming and the anti-cult movement
Both academic and non-academic critics of "destructive cults" have adopted and adapted the theories of Singer, Lifton and other researchers from the inception of the anti-cult movement onwards. Such critics often argue that certain religious groups use mind control techniques to unethically recruit and maintain members. Many of these critics advocated or engaged in deprogrammingDeprogramming
Deprogramming refers to actions that attempt to force a person to abandon allegiance to a religious, political, economic, or social group. Methods and practices may involve kidnapping and coercion...
as a method to liberate group members from apparent "brainwashing". However the practice of coercive deprogramming fell out of favor in the West and was largely superseded by exit counseling
Exit counseling
Exit counseling, also termed strategic intervention therapy, cult intervention or thought reform consultation, is an intervention designed to persuade an individual to leave a group perceived to be a cult...
. Exit counselor Steven Hassan
Steven Hassan
Steven Alan Hassan is a licensed mental health counselor and an exit counselor. Hassan was an early advocate of exit counseling, and is the author of two books on the subject of "cults", and what he describes as their use of mind control, thought reform, and the psychology of influence in order...
promotes what he calls the "BITE" model in his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
Releasing the Bonds
Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves is Steven Hassan's second work. It discusses Hassan's theories on mind control and cults.Hassan wrote:...
(2000). The BITE model describes various controls over human behavior, information, thought and emotion. Hassan claims that cults recruit and retain members by using, among other things, systematic deception, behavior modification
Behavior modification
Behavior modification is the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of...
, the withholding of information, and emotionally intense persuasion techniques (such as the induction of phobia
Phobia
A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational...
s). He refers to all of these techniques collectively as "mind control".
Critics of mind control theories caution against the broader implications of these conversion models. In the 1998 Enquete Commission report on "So-called Sects and Psychogroups" in Germany, a review was made of the BITE model. The report concluded that "control of these areas of action is an inevitable component of social interactions in a group or community. The social control that is always associated with intense commitment to a group must therefore be clearly distinguished from the exertion of intentional, methodical influence for the express purpose of manipulation." Indeed virtually all of these models share the notion that converts are in fact innocent "victims" of mind-control techniques. Hassan suggests that even the cult members manipulating the new converts may themselves be sincerely misled people. By considering NRM members innocent "victims" of psychological coercion these theories open the door for psychological treatments
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
.
Sociologists including Eileen Barker
Eileen Barker
Eileen Vartan Barker OBE, born in Edinburgh, UK, is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics , and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights...
have criticized theories of conversion precisely because they function to justify costly interventions such as deprogramming or exit counseling. For similar reasons, Barker and other scholars have criticized mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
professionals like Margaret Singer
Margaret Singer
Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer, was a clinical psychologist and a part-time Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S....
for accepting lucrative expert witness jobs in court cases involving NRMs. Singer was perhaps the most publicly notable scholarly proponent of "cult" brainwashing theories, and she became the focal point of the relative demise of those same theories within her discipline.
Scholarly debate
James RichardsonJames Richardson (sociologist)
James T. Richardson is a Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies, and the Director of the Master of Judicial Studies Degree Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Richardson specializes in social and behavioral science evidence, Sociology of Religions and New Religious Movements, Sociology...
observes that if the NRMs had access to powerful brainwashing techniques, one would expect that NRMs would have high growth rates, yet in fact most have not had notable success in recruitment. Most adherents participate for only a short time, and the success in retaining members is limited. For this and other reasons, sociologists including David Bromley and Anson Shupe
Anson Shupe
Anson D. Shupe is an American sociologist noted for his studies of religious groups and their countermovements, family violence and clergy misconduct.-Work:...
consider the idea that "cults" are brainwashing American youth to be "implausible." In addition to Bromley, Thomas Robbins
Thomas Robbins
Thomas Robbins may refer to:* Thomas Robbins , Congregational minister, bibliophile and antiquarian* Thomas Robbins , independent scholar of sociology of religion* Tom Robbins , author...
, Dick Anthony
Dick Anthony
Dick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
, Eileen Barker
Eileen Barker
Eileen Vartan Barker OBE, born in Edinburgh, UK, is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics , and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights...
, Newton Maloney, Massimo Introvigne
Massimo Introvigne
Massimo Introvigne is an Italian sociologist and intellectual property consultant. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions , an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of tens of books and articles in...
, John Hall, Lorne Dawson, Anson Shupe
Anson Shupe
Anson D. Shupe is an American sociologist noted for his studies of religious groups and their countermovements, family violence and clergy misconduct.-Work:...
, Gordon Melton, Marc Galanter
Marc Galanter
Marc Galanter is the John and Rylla Bosshard Professor of Law and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School and LSE Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He teaches South Asian Law, Law and Social Science, Legal Profession, Religion and...
, Saul Levine (amongst other scholars researching NRMs) have argued and established to the satisfaction of courts, of relevant professional associations and of scientific communities that there exists no scientific theory, generally accepted and based upon methodologically sound research, that supports the brainwashing theories as advanced by the anti-cult movement.
Some sociologists disagree with this consensus. Benjamin Zablocki
Benjamin Zablocki
Benjamin Zablocki is and American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he teaches sociology of religion and social psychology. He has published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements and cults....
sees strong indicators of mind control in some NRMs and suggests that the concept should be researched without bias. Stephen A. Kent
Stephen A. Kent
Stephen A. Kent, is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new and alternative religions, and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God , the Church of Scientology, and newer faiths...
has also published several articles about brainwashing. These scholars tend to see no consensus, while what Melton sees as a majority of scholars may regard it as a rejection of brainwashing and of mind control as legitimate theories.
Legal issues, the APA and DIMPAC
Since their inception, mind control theories have also been used in various legal proceedings against "cult" groups. In 1980, ex-Scientologist Lawrence Wollersheim successfully sued the Church of ScientologyChurch of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
in a California court which decided in 1986 that church practices had been conducted in a psychologically coercive environment and so were not protected by religious freedom guarantees. Others who have tried claiming a "brainwashing defense" for crimes committed while purportedly under mind control, including Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber....
, Steven Fishman
Steven Fishman
Steven Fishman is an American former Scientologist whose inclusion of Scientology's secret Operating Thetan levels in a court filing led to the first public confirmation by the Church of Scientology of its doctrines regarding Xenu and the Wall of Fire....
and Lee Boyd Malvo
Lee Boyd Malvo
Lee Boyd Malvo , is a spree killer convicted, along with John Allen Muhammad, of murders in connection with the Beltway sniper attacks, which took place in the Washington Metropolitan Area over a three-week period in October 2002...
, have not been successful.
In 1983, the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
(APA) asked Margaret Singer to chair a taskforce called the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control
APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control
The APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control formed at the request of the American Psychological Association in 1983. The APA asked Margaret Singer, one of the leading proponents of theories of coercive persuasion, to chair a task force to:1...
(DIMPAC) to investigate whether brainwashing or "coercive persuasion" did indeed play a role in recruitment by such movements. Before the taskforce had submitted its final report, the APA submitted on February 10, 1987 an amicus curiæ brief in an ongoing court case related to brainwashing. The brief repudiated Singer's theories on "coercive persuasion" and suggested that brainwashing theories were without empirical
Empirical
The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experimentation. Empirical data are data produced by an experiment or observation....
proof. Afterward the APA filed a motion to withdraw its signature from the brief, since Singer's final report had not been completed. However, on May 11, 1987, the APA's Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected the DIMPAC report because the brainwashing theory espoused "lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur", and concluded that "after much consideration, BSERP does not believe that we have sufficient information available to guide us in taking a position on this issue."
Two critical letters from external reviewers Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Jeffery D. Fisher accompanied the rejection memo. The letters criticized "brainwashing" as an unrecognized theoretical concept and Singer's reasoning as so flawed that it was "almost ridiculous." After her findings were rejected, Singer sued the APA in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy" and lost. Benjamin Zablocki
Benjamin Zablocki
Benjamin Zablocki is and American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he teaches sociology of religion and social psychology. He has published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements and cults....
and Alberto Amitrani interpreted the APA's response as meaning that there was no unanimous decision on the issue either way, suggesting also that Singer retained the respect of the psychological community after the incident. Yet her career as an expert witness ended at this time. She was meant to appear with Richard Ofshe
Richard Ofshe
Richard Ofshe is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the advisory board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advocacy organization, and is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and...
in the 1990 U.S. v. Fishman Case, in which Steven Fishman
Steven Fishman
Steven Fishman is an American former Scientologist whose inclusion of Scientology's secret Operating Thetan levels in a court filing led to the first public confirmation by the Church of Scientology of its doctrines regarding Xenu and the Wall of Fire....
claimed to have been under mind control by the Church of Scientology in order to defend himself against charges of embezzlement, but the courts disallowed her testimony. In the eyes of the court, "neither the APA nor the ASA has endorsed the views of Dr. Singer and Dr. Ofshe on thought reform".
After that time U.S. courts consistently rejected testimonies about mind control and manipulation, stating that such theories were not part of accepted mainline science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
according to the Frye Standard
Frye Standard
The Frye standard, Frye test, or general acceptance test is a test to determine the admissibility of scientific evidence. It provides that expert opinion based on a scientific technique is admissible only where the technique is generally accepted as reliable in the relevant scientific community. In...
(Anthony & Robbins 1992: 5-29) of 1923.
An expanding concept
Mind control is a general term for a number of controversial theories proposing that an individual's thinking, behavior, emotions or decisions can, to a greater or lesser extent, be manipulated at will by outside sources. According to sociologist James T. Richardson, some of the concepts of brainwashing have spread to other fields and are applied "with some success" in contexts unrelated to the earlier cult controversies, such as custody battles and child sexual abuseChild sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
cases, "where one parent is accused of brainwashing the child to reject the other parent, and in child sex abuse cases where one parent is accused of brainwashing the child to make sex abuse accusations against the other parent".
Stephen A. Kent
Stephen A. Kent
Stephen A. Kent, is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new and alternative religions, and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God , the Church of Scientology, and newer faiths...
analyzes and summarizes the use of the brainwashing meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
by non-sociologists in the period 2000-2007, finding the term useful not only in the context of "New Religions/Cults", but equally under the headings of "Teen Behavior Modification Programs; Terrorist Groups; Dysfunctional Corporate Culture; Interpersonal Violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
; and Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
".
See also
- Mind control in popular cultureMind control in popular cultureMind control has proven a popular subject in fiction, featuring in books and films such as The IPCRESS File and The Manchurian Candidate, both stories featuring the premise that controllers could hypnotize a person into murdering on command while retaining no memory of the killing...
- Crowd manipulationCrowd manipulationCrowd manipulation is the intentional use of techniques based on the principles of crowd psychology to engage, control, or influence the desires of a crowd in order to direct its behavior toward a specific action. This practice is common to politics and business and can facilitate the approval or...
- Culture of fearCulture of fearCulture of fear is a term used by certain scholars, writers, journalists and politicians who believe that some in society incite fear in the general public to achieve political goals, for example......
- DestabilisationDestabilisationThe word destabilisation can be applied to a wide variety of contexts such as attempts to undermine political, military or economic power. In a psychological context it is used as a technique in brain washing and abuse to disorientate and disarm the victim...
- GaslightingGaslightingGaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory and perception...
- Unethical human experimentation in the United States
- Love bombingLove bombingLove bombing is the deliberate show of affection or friendship by an individual or a group of people toward another individual. Critics have asserted that this action may be motivated in part by the desire to recruit, convert or otherwise influence....
- Mind gamesMind GamesMind Games is John Lennon's fourth post-Beatles album, and was recorded and released in 1973. Like his previous album, the politically topical and somewhat abrasive Some Time in New York City, Mind Games was poorly received by music critics...
- MKULTRA (a covert CIA research program)
- PropagandaPropagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
, and Propaganda modelPropaganda modelThe propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media... - Propaganda: The Formation of Men's AttitudesPropaganda: The Formation of Men's AttitudesPropaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is a landmark work on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher,theologian, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one...
- Subliminal messages
- Tin foil hat
- IndoctrinationIndoctrinationIndoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology . It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned...
Further reading
- Ellul, JacquesJacques EllulJacques Ellul was a French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, lay theologian, and Christian anarchist. He wrote several books about the "technological society" and the interaction between Christianity and politics....
. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's AttitudesPropaganda: The Formation of Men's AttitudesPropaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is a landmark work on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher,theologian, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one...
. Trans. Konrad Kellen & Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1965. New York: Random House/ Vintage 1973