Lecture 9 - Cults, brainwashing and propoganda Flashcards
Who are cult sympathizers?
Believe cults merely represent alternative culture
Describe cults as “new religious movements”
See negativity toward cults as a reflection of prejudice and a symptom of “moral panic”
Who are cult critics?
Maintain cults are psychologically harmful
Argue that cults use unethical “mind control” procedures to influence members for their personal gain
List examples of cults
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Moonies The Family (aka Children of God) Heaven's Gate Branch Davidians Aum Supreme Truth Solar Temple People's Temple
What are the pre-cult characteristics of joiners?
People who join cults are no poorer, stupider or sicker than those who do not.
Cult joiners often described as “seekers” … people seeking meaning but who are disillusioned by traditional religions.
What did Levine & salter (1976) do?
pre-cult characteristics. Interviewed cult members
They interviewed 106 current members of 9 cults who provided information about why they joined.
43% reported feelings of loneliness, rejection, sadness
41% reported they were drifting / life was meaningless
34% mentioned a personal crisis or unpleasant situation
30% met someone who actively converted them or
became concerned with the person’s happiness.
The majority reported “average” to “good” relationships with their parents before joining their groups.
What did Martin et a., (1992) report?
Leaving cults
They reported that of a sample of 110 former members, 23% walked away, 44% received exit counselling, and 25% were deprogrammed (holding a previous cult member against their will and submitting them to long lectures about their group)
What are the effects of cults on former members?
high levels of anxiety and guilt, difficulty making decisions (because in a cult everything is decided for u), depression, and loss of identity (because when u join a cult ur identity is stripped away, therefore 10yrs down the line u don’t know what to do).
Conway & Siegelman surveyed 400 former cult members and found 7 common symptoms: “floating” or dissociation (abrupt reversion of identity and behaviour in line with the cult. usually triggered by some image or smell (52%), nightmares (40%), inability to break mental rhythms of chanting (35%), amnesia (21%), suicidal or self-destructive tendencies (21%), hallucinations/delusions (14%), and violent outbursts (14%).
What is the percentage range of former cult members displaying clinical symptoms?
27% to 95%.
Results need to be interpreted with caution. Just like how people in the cult may put on a performance to show that they are happy, people who have left the cult may feel compelled to put on an act to show how unhappy they were with the cult, part of legitimizing their reason to leave.
What are the attraction of cults?
(1) Resolution of unresolved psychic needs: According to Freud, the need to believe in a God and join a religion is an infantile of aggression where u r looking for a father figure.
(2) Sense of meaning: Cult membership useful for those who are seeking a meaning in life and a cause
(3) Uncertainty reduction: Cults provide a clear set of guidelines for how we should think and behave
(4) Companionship and belonging
What are recruiting techniques of joining a cult?
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1) Never say ‘join a cult’ because no-one is going to join a cult. You have to use some kind of front.
2) Invitation to “open your mind”.
Influence through emotion, not intellect; to refrain from being judgmental and just believe.
3) Promise of answers.
Cults frequently “diagnose” your inner unhappiness, and promise easy solutions and quick answers.
Jim Jones exploited this, he would find out secretly about a members history (divorce etc.) and point them out tell them all of what he knows, and then he would provide solutions. (BARNUM EFFECT)
4) Love-bombing
People are embraced by members in an enthusiastic display of unconditional love. Oldtimers might constantly serve and “help” a prospective member, thus inducing feelings of guilt and a norm of reciprocation. “You’re so open to the world” not the whole ur good looking schtick.
5) Invoking a sense of similarity
We are more influenced by those who are similar to us
Cult members might try to reduce the sense of strangeness and difference by invoking commonalities (“I used to be a school teacher too”, “You look so familiar”, “You look like a friend of mine”).
6) Encouragement to participate in group activities
An act in which you participate with the group – particularly a public act – is a way of creating emotional ties with other members.
Public acts of group-iness can also help shift people’s self-image (“I must be a Moonie because I just behaved like a Moonie”). Adjust our self-image to align with our behaviour.
List tips to resist these techniques?
Practice being a deviant at times; learn to accept rejection
Don’t be afraid to “cut your losses”
Always avoid taking uncertain actions that the change-agent insists must be made immediately
Insist on an understandable explanation, without double-speak. Don’t let change-agents make you feel stupid; poor explanations are often signs of deception
Be tuned in to the establishment of a host-guest relationship in which you are made to feel like a guest
Remember there’s no such thing as instant, unconditional love from strangers
Don’t enter “total situations” which are unfamiliar and from which there are no psychological or physical exits
Engage your mind in critical evaluation
Tolerate guilt as a part of human nature; don’t rush to ease it via paths others lay out for you
According to the CIA, what strategies did communists use to brainwash their agents in POWs?
(1) Prisoners were placed in an altered state of consciousness through hypnosis and physical debilitation (e.g., sleep deprivation, beating, starvation)
(2) In the resulting primitive state of consciousness, prisoners became highly suggestible (i.e., unable to resist suggestions that they change attitudes or behaviour)
(3) Captors submit them to “conditioning” for which prisoners are punished for maintaining their original attitudes and rewarded for taking on communist propaganda
Steps 1-3 work IN THE MOMENT and there is evidence for it.
(4) Captors assume a new personality that governs their actions and decisions, and persists indefinitely, even when removed from the brainwashing situation
However there is NO EVIDENCE that (4) works; that ur permanently altered once u’ve left POW camp.
What techniques did the Chinese use?
They DID NOT use hypnosis or anything like that.
They engaged in very psychological techniques; i.e. low level commitments being escalated. They were not abusive to captors, they would engage in dialogue and get POW to admit to something that was mildly pro communist or mildly anti American.
Step by step they ask u about thoughts on imperfect country, then they’ll ask u to elaborate it, then they’ll ask u to write an essay. There is no coercion or rewards for this. There is this illusion that u are doing this independently and u ACTUALLY believe in this stuff.
The success of this strategy shows
(a) The power of commitment in gaining compliance
(b) The need for people to feel that they have chosen to
change their attitudes
What conditions did Lifton (1961) outline that resulted in “mind control” in Communist China?
(7)
Milieu control:
Milieu control involves the limiting of all forms of communication with the outside world. cutting people out from outside world
Mystical manipulation:
The idea that ur working towards a higher purpose, and that he will be instrumental in the attainment of that goal. Any thought or action which questions the higher purpose is considered to be stimulated by a lower purpose – to be backward, selfish and petty in the face of the great mission. Any means justifies the end.
Demand for purity:
The world is sharply divided into the pure and the impure; into good and evil. and the cult will look after you. The possibility of attaining absolute purity is made clear to the captors, and that anything done to anyone in the name of this purity is ultimately moral.The manipulator becomes the ultimate judge of good and evil, and use guilt and shame to control the captor.
Use of confession:
Everyday u have to confess to something.
The idea is that private thoughts, control over ur private world is deeply immoral.
Sacred science:
Merging the logical and the scientific. These movements will always have some kind of ‘bible’ (e.g. Mao’s Little Red book). People point to these scriptures as proof of what they’re saying. This results in the illusion of logic and precision. Dissent is not only immoral but also “unscientific”.
Loading of language:
Thought terminating cliche = things that are reduced to easily expressed definitive sounding phrases.
Constrain people’s language
Repetition of phrases
Dispensing of existence:
A sharp line is drawn between those whose right to existence can be recognized (e.g., the “working class”, the “peasant class”) and those that cannot (e.g., the “reactionaries”, the “imperialists”). Non-people can become people if they reform; by joining the group
