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Brainwashing psychological manipulation
contents
- Pavlov's dogs
- Physical torture or manipulation?
- personality training
- The Milgram experiment
- manipulation
- Projection and double messages
- Abuse of social behavior
- Think positive?
- Political brainwashing
- What happens when brainwashing??
- Forced personality change
Pavlov's dogs
The Russian researcher Pavlov discovered the conditional reflex in experiments with dogs. One day, water penetrated into the rooms where the dogs were staying and the animals had to swim for a day for their lives. After that they had forgotten almost all learned reactions.
Brainwashing: how people can be manipulated. Image: pholidito - fotolia Pavlov concluded that by forcefully overpowering his physical capacity, one can force a person to give up the learned contents of his consciousness, values and norms, as well as memories. This emptiness can then be filled with new content - for example, with a previously rejected ideology.
Physical torture or manipulation?
Methods to induce this loss of consciousness include: sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, fear of death or solitary confinement. However, the collapse of previous beliefs through such torture methods rarely lasts.
The classic image of brainwashing is a victim in a torture cell, which makes an inquisitor with carrot and stick docile, attaches the thumbscrews and promises him in cooperation to stop the ordeal.
In reality, the soft methods work better and, above all, sustainably. Margaret Singer, who researches psycho-cults, writes, "Brainwashing is the invisible social adaptation."
According to Singer, deprivation of liberty and physical violence are not successful at all: "All research (...) clearly shows that imprisonment and the use of force are not necessary conditions, but on the contrary counterproductive when it comes to people's attitudes and behavior change."
She writes: "If you really want to turn others around, then the soft methods are cheaper, less noticeable and highly effective. The old saying that honey attracts more flies than vinegar is still valid today. "
Brainwashing, therefore, is not a one-time breaking of a personality through violence, but a creeping manipulation, in which social and psychological influences are exchanged little by little. A person's perception of his environment is being reprogrammed.
Singer explains the meaning of such programming: "The programs aim to destabilize a person's self-concept, to make them re-interpret their life story completely and to accept a new version of the reality of causal relationships."
personality training
In post-modern turbo-capitalism, personality training is a boom that does not break. Some of these "trainers" are serious, and there's little point in educating people on how to make better use of their potential than they currently do.
But manipulative methods are in harmony with the neo-liberal performance ideology that anyone socially marginalized is to blame for not swimming in the money.
Unlimited energy, inner strength, self-confidence, harmony, joy of life and, above all, to be on the side of the winners. These are the promises of "Become what you want to be" seminars.
Authoritarian drill, "overcoming" internal blockades by spreading their fears are common methods, as well as group-sessions lasting for nights and, as a traditional method of brainwashing, re-programming because the person concerned is not right the way he is Such exercises are emotionally significant.
But the participants who accept the system join in, and critics say, "not yet so far". At the end of the seminar, the "new man" should stand, and whimsical training prepares for salvation.
These crash courses promise what a serious psychotherapy can only achieve in the long term. It is not about effective therapeutic approaches such as self-reflection or a change in behavior, but rather about drill and humiliation.
Many participants are enthusiastic after the seminars. But that is not because they now deny their lives as a successful personality, but because of the subtle manipulation: they do not see themselves as victims of manipulation, but feel enlightened.
Often they react aggressively to any skepticism - as do members of sects. Unlike Scientology, however, such seminars are standard in many companies, and employees who participate in them often do not dare to voice criticism.
The Milgram experiment
The bad news is brainwashing works, and not just in people who are particularly unstable. In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram had test subjects torture a subject with (fictitious) electric shocks if they made mistakes.
The subject had an electrode on his arm that was connected to an alleged stun gun in the Teacher's room. This "teacher" saw the subject and could allegedly give her electric shocks of 15 to 450 volts. It read: "slight shock", "danger", "severe shock", and in the end only "XXX".
For each task that the subject incorrectly answered, the "teacher" should increase the "penalty" by 15 volts. At 120 volts called the "tortured", he is in pain, at 150 V "get me out of here". If the teacher got in doubt now, the "senior scientist" said, "They have no choice." 60% of the participants went up to 450 volts, where they had to assume that the subject had died because they did not dare to disobey.
If they did not see the subject, almost all increased to 450 volts.
Repetitions of the experiment in other countries led to the same result. When authority, in this case scientific, is established, people give up responsibility for actions that they would otherwise reject ethically.
manipulation
Brainwashing means systematic manipulation, so influencing someone against his will; It changes thought patterns and memories, mental and emotional impressions.
Manipulation in milder forms, however, takes place constantly: in relationships, in the workplace, in marriage, school or university.
People use them when they want to impose their own will on others, forcing them to behave the way they expect.
A common method is to suggest to the victim that the desired behavior is no alternative, right, and best for the manipulated.
To isolate the other as well, to portray him as abnormal, is one of the common forms of manipulation: "I do not understand this. Everyone else goes to bed early, only you want to watch DVD at night. "
Manipulation goes into open or hidden power games, for example, when a wife threatens because her partner does not do what she wants: "Okay, get the divorce documents."
The manipulated is thus in a bind, even if he sees through the game: Even if he assumes (he can not be sure), that it is only a forced courtesy, according to -Worten - marriage is at stake.
Such a practice goes into psychological violence, for example, to imply "you are breaking everything," when someone drops a glass. It is not about the specific incident, but about getting control over the opponent, so that the victim works as the manipulator would like.
Even more pronounced are direct devaluations of the personality: "You are boring, you are lazy, you are stupid." Most of the time something is left hanging, but even people with a stable self-esteem can not adequately respond to such defamation. It is important to realize that the manipulator primarily says something about himself.
Projection and double messages
Devaluation often goes hand in hand with projection: the more brutal the verbal aggression, the more the aggressor usually projects his or her own negative feelings onto another person. This becomes clear, often unconscious, manipulation, when the aggressor gives the other the responsibility for their own destructive feelings: "Now I'm already disengaged because of your behavior."
Duplicate messages are a trap in relationships to unsettle the partner. The manipulator, for example, says with a sarcastic undertone, "And are you feeling well?" When the person in question asks, "Why are you angry," the manipulator replies, "All I asked was that you felt good." Goal it is to create a queasy feeling in the partner and to occupy him with what annoys the manipulator so much. If the manipulated man now approaches the partner and asks what is going on, the answer comes: "Nothing is not important ..." If the victim does not respond to the game, the manipulator suggests: "I do not care about you."
Parents like to use this remedy to provoke fear, insecurity and self-doubt in children, in relationships it serves the same purpose. A strong self-confidence and reflection are needed, so that this power game is not established as a system, because then the manipulator will use it again and again, because he has learned that the other works.
Abuse of social behavior
Why do we let ourselves be manipulated? Sympathy for the manipulator play into it, the need for recognition, the confusion of an increasingly complex society and the attempt to reduce the flood of stimuli to simple explanations.
Manipulation plays with our social behavior, give and take. We help each other, that's a good thing. But it can be exploited by the manipulator doing us a "favor" and feeling "committed" to him. Then he asks for something in return or keeps us in suspense, to owe him something.
The "foot in the door" also proves to be a manipulation technique, for example, if we do not want to take on a job and our supervisor asks us to "look at it" first. This is linked to the fact that it is difficult to say no, once we said yes.
Manipulation also works through repetition. Constant repetition of a statement does not say anything about its correctness, it imprints us however. The familiar becomes familiar, and we are more positive towards it than the unknown.
Anyone who manipulates us usually appeals to our feelings before he raises his concerns in order to eliminate our ability to criticize.
The manipulator puts those affected under time pressure and supplies them only with limited information. He also flatters the victim. We are under pressure, at the same time we feel acknowledged and fail to look for further information.
Bluffing and questioning techniques that lure us out of what we do not want to tell are other means to manipulate.
Think positive?
"Think positive" is the guiding principle of the liberal idea according to which "everyone is lucky". Among those psychologists who act as stooges for functioning in capitalist usability, "positive thinking" is considered a mantra to be successful in every way, and those who are unsuccessful do not think positively enough.
However, empirical psychological studies show that only "positive thinking" is dangerous. At best, it leads to ignoring obstacles that appear in any plan, in more serious situations it puts people who have mental and social problems into isolation because they think that their legitimate bad feelings are the cause of their well-being is.
To suggest to a person suffering from depression "you do not think positive enough" is how to punch him in the gut.
"Positive thinking" is an esoteric ideology, whether with the help of supposedly supernatural beings, psychological banalities or the suggestion that wishes become true if one only "thinks positively" and, as is usually the case in esotericism, forbids people's own thinking.
The optimistic thinking becomes a dictatorship, the victims submit to a fiction that they can not achieve. Winning, having to be rich, or having to be good is a system of coercion that drives the victims to despair of being worth nothing.
All their gurus have in common that the "path to success" excludes any criticism. Who thinks about what happens when a project fails, is out of the game. The core of scientific honesty, namely to doubt, is forbidden.
To condition the "positive thinking" is to wipe out the old personality and put a new identity in their place. A protagonist of this ideology, Norman Vincent Peale says: "Let's get into it until we truly realize that it is possible for us to positively influence and shape our future through our attitudes. If we create a successful image of our personality in our imagination, we hold on to it until it becomes reality. "
Another propagandist of "positive thinking," Erhard F. Freitag, even speaks openly of brainwashing: "Immediately begin to subject your thoughts to some control. Banish any negative consideration and any doubt. "
This leads to L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who said, "All the happiness you find is in you."
The followers of positive thinking are deprived of their identities and experiences, their life story and their way of thinking - in the end they lose their personality.
Political brainwashing
The English word "Brainwashing" comes from the Chinese and was introduced in the United States during the Korean War.
In the 1930s, the show trials during the Stalinist purges became known, in which the victims of terror accused themselves of the worst crimes. Mao Zedong had so-called re-education programs that brainwash the Chinese, so had between 1966 and 1976 tens of thousands of teachers and students move to the countryside to do peasant work.
The psychologist Kurt Lewin examined the supporters of National Socialism in Germany and tried to understand how National Socialism could establish itself and how the brain-washed Germans were de-indoctrinated. He developed a model of re-education to teach German humanism and human rights.
What happens when brainwashing??
The psychiatrist Ivo Planava, b. 1934 in Brno, analyzed in the Czech newspaper "Listy" 1969, what happens in a brainwashing, which people are at particular risk, and how people can defend against it. He summarized:
To lose the belief that one's own actions make sense, there are two ways: First, a sudden mental breakdown. But rarely does it work sustainably because people are aware of the threat and resist.
Second, the slow self-abandonment, a process of gradual change, especially when people in a similar situation make up the environment. The individuals isolated in this way are no longer able to independently make decisions that go beyond "living from hand to mouth". Such people are easily manipulated.
Civil liberty consists, on the one hand, in choosing and, on the other, in the ability to vote. The freedom to choose is one given objectively by politics; on the other hand, the ability to choose presupposes situations to judge and act upon.
Modern dictatorships, according to Planava, would know very well that they can not just "govern with bayonets". As long as the citizens can judge, they resist. Authoritarian systems therefore controlled the freedom of thought. The citizens would have to suspect that the state has an organization, the secret police, against which one can not proceed legally. The citizens therefore felt an indefinite fear, whether they had a clear or bad conscience.
Political programming, for example, starts with a shocking surprise: The victim is suggested that it will not live much longer; his family is in danger, and those affected are isolated at the same time.
In the second stage, the victim is told an ominous debt until he thinks he has done something wrong.
Then, the regime's henchmen present information that supports distorted perceptions: distorted statements by those affected, fake documents, or fake denunciation of family and friends.
If the individual now feels left alone by all, it opens to influence. Now the carrot begins: "If you cooperate, then you may be able to come free." This ties in with the hope and unconscious guilt of the victim. Slowly the manipulators build up paranoia and self-accusation of the victim. They appeal to "reason" and offer "adaptation to reality" as a way out.
Suggested hopelessness to live with the old identity goes hand in hand with promises to get out of the situation when those affected "adapt". Absolute hopelessness is counterproductive for brainwashing. Those who have nothing to lose are more likely to offer resistance than someone whose hopes are nebulously made.
To make judgments, a person needs differentiated information, and interpersonal communication integrates him into in group and society. Re-education therefore prevents all contact with confidants and access to alternative information; Brainwashing of the masses, on the other hand, breaks down the communication structure.
Totalitarian regimes therefore control the mass media with inconspicuous censorship until it becomes superfluous because system loyalty dominates the monopolized media. Moreover, the historical experience is synchronized, and reduced to the narrative of the regime.
The regime disturbs and destroys families, friendships and social unions, clubs and unions. Preferably, the stooges of the powerful in the workplace are looking for people who are in a difficult situation, have no good reputation, alcohol or other problems, are under-challenged or underpaid.
They are suggested to rise when they share information about other employees. Non-conforming groups can be disintegrated by terminating, relocating, or promoting the most unfit. The less information people get, the more insecure they become. Now the regime offers false security: "If you acknowledge us, you need not fear anything."
Manipulation is especially common in politics. Picture: kantver - fotolia Forced personality change
Sects and psychology do not have the power of political dictatorships. On the other hand, they build on the needs of unstable people who are dissatisfied with their life situation and promise them healing if those affected "change"..
People who are in the clutches of such sects show typical behavior:
1) They align their lives absolutely and according to different principles than before.
2) They treat their environment as hostile.
3) They completely submit their own judgments to another authority.
4) They surround themselves only with co-thinkers (party, ashram, etc.)
5) They are extremely attached to a leader and uncritically represent their worldview.
6) They also want to "transform" others with this absolute faith.
The three steps of the "transformation" are:
1) Fascination with the teaching of the Guru
2) destruction of personal safety and break with the social environment
3) Building a new identity
Brainwash and protect yourself
Who is particularly at risk of being brainwashed - whether through sects, psycho-cults, esoteric "healers", "personality trainers", cold-calculating company bosses, advertising professionals or political demagogues?
First, these are people who suffer from serious illnesses that neither they nor serious doctors understand; secondly, those who suffer the loss of a human being, whether after divorce, death or relocation; thirdly, young adults who come fresh from their parents' home and do not know the world outside - here, above all, religious and political sects fish.
Psycho-cults are masters at recognizing traumas and tragic circumstances and explaining them to the person concerned with their belief system, and then building up a slavish new identity on this narrative pattern: for example, they suggest to a woman who was beaten by her father as a child that she In a past life, she was a woman raped, and she now had to work through these rebirths.
People who are in crisis and change usually feel lonely; The "brainwashers" reinforce this loneliness, in which they further isolate the victims and only allow the psycho group, esoteric sect etc. as social contact.
In violent relationships, the offender stops the victim's contact with family and friends. In prison, the guards isolate the prisoners from each other.
For every brainwashing, the perpetrators look for victims above all people who are weak and vulnerable.
These include:
People who have lost their jobs and fear for their future; freshly divorced, who dare not make a fresh start; People who are generally too open to stimuli as a result of mental peculiarities, such as bipolar or highly sensitive people; People who are biographically inclined to subordinate themselves; People who come from a sheltered home and are looking for a replacement family; People who come from broken families and long for a healthy world; Drug addicts and alcoholics seeking a way out of addiction; People who are very naïve and have little access to information; lonely people.
The offender must in any case find a victim to whom he can take a superior position. For example, he begins to lie to the victim, shames it and intimidates it. He twists statements of those affected and blames the victim when he feels worse and worse.
He sets a framework such as a "seminar" of his psychology cult, in which humiliation is said to be part of learning training: verbal abuse and harassment are just as much a part of it as the exposure of those affected. These are forced to passivity.
At the same time, the perpetrators offer the victim a supposedly better alternative to their old environment: bringing it into contact with people whose brainwashing has already been completed; those affected are thus in a peer pressure and strive for a position in the group, which they achieve only if they meet the suggestions of brainwashing.
The suggestions are constantly repeated, spoken, sung or "prayed" until key words are unconsciously memorized, often in the rhythm of the heartbeat and with appropriate music.
Those affected do not have time to reflect on what's happening, for example, they need to continuously participate in "seminars," do group work, or have one-on-one talks with brainwashes.
The victim is constantly presented with a "we against them", and criticisms from the outside world reinterpreted as conspiracies of dark forces - any "explanation" amounts to the guru being right and the critics wrong.
Once brainwashing is complete, the victim can be reprogrammed.
Now, the same methods of conditioning are used to rebuild those affected: When those affected act as the perpetrators desire, they are rewarded when they show remnants of their own thinking, the perpetrators link them with negative experiences, humiliations and incapacitation.
What can be done to prevent brainwashing? In the postmodern democracies, we are not brainwashed by a political regime like George Orwell, but by a variety of advertising strategies, competing psycho - cults, "motivational gurus," "alternative explanations," etc.
First of all, we must become painfully aware that no one is immune to brainwashing. It ties in with human needs such as social fellowship and recognition as well as the fears and hopes that every human being has, no matter how psychologically stable we are.
When we are trained in manipulation techniques, we can be careful of whether someone uses them. Are we obviously in a crisis for outsiders, for example, when we walk alone in the park with our heads bowed? When a stranger approaches us and promises to build us, we should become skeptical.
For example, we might ask, "Do you want to influence me now, or is that meant to be serious?" Of course, he will deny manipulating us, then we ask, "Why are you just addressing me?"
Does he leave it at friendly words, or does he ask for our phone number? Does he stay on our heels even though we show him we want to stay alone? Does he recommend a group that has a solution to our problem? Does he immediately have the right answer for our worries? These are all indications that something is wrong.
We can also let the manipulation go nowhere from the start by addressing the motivation behind it.
But what do we do if our friends and relatives are brainwashed? We should seek professional help, such as sect commissioners or critical psychologists working with cult victims.
We should inform the teachers, colleagues and confidants of the victim, investigate the perpetrators, and ask the police if an ad is possible, seeking advice in critical forums.
Above all, we should show our affection to those affected and make them aware that they can trust us. If our friend, partner or child has psychological problems that the perpetrators follow up on, we can involve serious therapists who offer the victim a real perspective. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)