Re: Brainwashing, Manipulation;The other side of the medal -- RSQUBF discussion forum

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Date Posted: 06:44:14 06/22/04 Tue
Author: fellow christian
Subject: Re: Brainwashing, Manipulation;The other side of the medal
In reply to: fellow christian 's message, "Brainwashing, Manipulation;The other side of the medal" on 07:32:13 05/14/04 Fri

Hi everybody,

this is no attempt to carry on this discussion thread. It is a semi-official letter of a leading scientist of the APA, which would perhaps be of interest for everybody. Considering of course that he is non-believer his well-balanced view is perhaps helpful. Check also the link in the bottom of his answer-letter to my request.

fellow christian
--------------------------------------

Thank-you for writing to the American Psychological Association. I am
responding to your inquiry on behalf of APA President Diane Halpern. I
am Steven Breckler, the Executive Director for Science at APA. Your
email raises a number of excellent questions about what social scientists
know about brainwashing, whether people have complete freedom of
choice, and how religions are labeled based on the number of followers they
have. Let me begin by saying that I am happy to offer you some
information, but that I do not speak for all psychologists, nor for all of
APA, or even for all of the scientists at APA. I should also add that
because I do not know anything about the specifics of the division that
has occurred in your religious group, I cannot say anything at all about
who is at fault. Instead, I will try to offer you some general
information that is consistent with what many social scientists would have to
say about brainwashing, group conflict, and free will.

I should begin by noting that the term "brainwashing" is used in many
different ways by different people, including different social
scientists. One problem in understanding brainwashing is that it cannot be
systematically studied in the way in which many other things (e.g.,
persuasion, social influence, conformity) are studied. For example, you can't
ethically do a careful laboratory study of brainwashing. Instead,
people who have analyzed brainwashing have relied largely on case studies
and after-the-fact analyses of historical events (e.g., prisoner of war
camps). Most scientists who make reference to brainwashing probably
mean something like "using powerful, persistent and systematic efforts to
change a person's beliefs in ways that are either (1) highly
inconsistent with that person's own self-interest or (2) highly antisocial
(harmful to others)." Some might add that brainwashing efforts might include
various forms of abuse and that the goal of brainwashing is usually to
get a person to renounce values or beliefs that were once deeply held.
So when parents try to get their children to do their homework or brush
their teeth regularly, that is not brainwashing. But when Jim Jones of
the People's Temple convinced a large group of people to move to
Guyana, South America in the late 1970s, and when he convinced about 900 of
them to commit suicide in 1978, this was clearly an example of what most
people call brainwashing.

One problem in defining brainwashing in the case of social groups such
as religions is that when a group is very small, or when the norms and
beliefs they promote differ widely from those of the majority of the
populace, things that might otherwise be tolerated or even encouraged are
more likely to be considered brainwashing. Another tricky issue is
that it is sometimes hard to determine what is ultimately in someone's
best interest. For better or worse, though, people often rely on majority
opinions in defining brainwashing. My guess is that because many
European countries are much more secular (i.e., less religious) than is the
U.S., the same religious behaviors that would be seen as normal in the
U.S. are seen as questionable or even abnormal in many parts of Europe.

Your comment about believing in free will is also relevant to
brainwashing. Some people would probably argue that influence techniques are
more likely to qualify as brainwashing if no reasonable person could
resist them. For example, all ethical issues aside, locking someone up,
depriving him or her of food or water, and using physical threats
(whether threats of immediate harm or threats of ultimate damnation) are
justifiably viewed as acts of brainwashing - because if these powerful
pressures are applied long enough, almost anyone will succumb to them. In
other words, good persuasion works on some people, but brainwashing
works on almost everyone. Incidentally, as implied by the above point,
many scientists would disagree with your assumption that people can resist
even the most powerful pressure from others because research has shown
that some forms of social pressure (including non-abusive forms) are so
powerful that almost everyone succumbs to them. For example, most
people will obey someone who is perceived as a legitimate authority or power
figure and do things that he or she otherwise would not do. I realize
that this is probably at odds with your expressed beliefs, but this
principle is applied in many non-scientific circles. For example, when a
person harms another person, one of the key questions juries are often
asked to consider is what most other people would have done in the same
situation. If anyone would have hurt this other person (e.g., because
the person in question was trying to kill one's child), the person who
committed what would otherwise be a crime is not considered guilty.

I am not sure if this perspective will benefit you in any way, but I
hope that it may encourage you to continue thinking about productive ways
to try to resolve the dispute you described. Both scientists and
psychotherapists know much more about conflict resolution than they do about
brainwashing, by the way. So if you would like to get more information
about conflict resolution, there are many free resources on this topic.
One resource, for example, can be found at this link:

http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap13/chap13m.htm

(see http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/ as the parent page for the above)

Sincerely,

Steve Breckler

Steven J. Breckler, Ph.D.
Executive Director for Science
American Psychological Association
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 336-5938
(202) 336-5953 (fax)
sbreckler@apa.org
www.apa.org/science
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: fellow christian [mailto:fellow_christian1@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 8:17 AM
To: President
Subject: Controversy about brainwashing in cults, sects, christian
denominations etc.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am a christian and live in Germany. The organization
in which I have experienced christian faith, since
1990 and which I am still supporting actively, is the
campus evangelism organization UBF "University Bible
Fellowship".

Sadly, there has been a division in our organization,
three years ago and those who wanted to change the
direction of the activities of the church and its
methods are now called CMI (Campus Mission
International).

Since then, a very small group of "reformers" of the
organization, was not satisfied with leaving the
organization but kept slandering our UBF organization
ever since, using the internet for their purposes.

One of their accusations is the accusation of
brainwashing, indoctionation, etc. I have looked at
the free encyclopedia "wikipedia" and found out about
the controversy over these terms, that psychologists
actually don't use these terms any more and about the
APA declaration of 1987. But again the APA seems to
change it's mind on the issue, since the presidency of
Prof. Dr. Zimbardo; please correct me, if I am wrong.

I am very annoyed nevertheless with the ease and the
disrespect towards religous minorities, that certain
"mainstream"-christians apply the above controversial
terms for adult, responsible persons. As a christian,
I believe in the freedom of will. I believe, that a human
being is always free to choose, even in the most
difficult circumstances. I believe we can resist to
commercials, even if we see them every day. Or, the
other way round, who can resist fully to daily brainwashing?
And why should brainwashing be reduced to social or
religous minorities?

I would propose the following:
- would you please explain the term "brainwashing" and
the equivalents to me, so far the are scientifically
rigorous enough, with your authority as the president
of the APA?
- even better it would be, if you would be willing to
participate in the discussion, reading some of the
previous posts in
http://www.voy.com/60734/7158.html

Yours faithfully,

"fellow Christian"

P.S. "fellow christian" is the pseudonym I am using in
the above referred forum, in order to protect my
privacy. Please have understanding for this. Would you
demand from me to reveal my identity, in order to
answer my questions, I would reveal to you my
identity, if you can promise me confidentiality.

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Replies:

Re: Brainwashing, Manipulation -- Chris, 08:17:24 06/22/04 Tue
Brainwashing reduced to social or religous minorities -- Chris, 08:36:44 06/22/04 Tue
Re: Brainwashing, Manipulation;The other side of the medal -- Joe, 10:57:04 06/22/04 Tue