Brainwashing
The term brainwashing first came into public use during the Korean War in the 1950s as an explanation for why a few American GIs appeared to defect to the Communists. Brainwashing consisted of the notion that the Chinese communists had discovered a mysterious and effective method of causing deep and permanent behavioral changes in prisoners of war. Later the brainwashing theory was used to explain the process of religious conversion to new religious movements including cults. The brainwashing theory has now been discredited among psychologists and sociologists.
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2 Brainwashing by cults 3 Informal use 4 Dramatization 5 See also 6 References and external links |
Two studies of the Korean War defections by Robert Lifton and Edgar Schein concluded that "brainwashing" was an inappropriate concept to account for this renunciation of U.S. citizenship. They found that the Chinese did not engage in any systematic re-education. The Chinese were, however, able to get some of them to make anti-American statements by placing the prisoners under harsh conditions of deprivation and then by offering them more comfortable situations such as better sleeping quarters, better food, warmer clothes or blankets. Nevertheless, the psychiatrists noted that even these were quite ineffective at changing basic attitudes for most people. In essence, the prisoners did not actually convert to Communism. Rather many of them behaved as though they did in order to avoid the plausible threat of extreme physical coercion. Moreover the few prisoners that were influenced by Communist indoctrination did so as a result of motives and personality characteristics that existed before imprisonment.
Currently the concept of brainwashing is not used by most psychologists and social scientists, and the methods of persuasion and coercion used during the Korean War are not considered to be effective.
In the 1960s some young people suddenly adopted faiths, beliefs, and behavior that was very different from their previous lifestyles and at variance with their upbringing, after coming into contact with new religious movements. The converts sometimes neglected or even broke contact with their families. All this was very strange and upsetting for their family members. To explain these phenonemona, the theory was postulated that these young people had been brainwashed by these new religious movements, pejoratively called cults. One of the most prominent advocates of this theory was Margaret Singer.
It was alleged that these cults would recruit new members by isolating them from their family and friends (inviting them to an end of term camp after university for example), arranging a sleep deprivation program (3am prayer meetings) and exposing them to loud and repetitive chanting. Another alleged technique of religious brainwashing involved love bombing rather than torture.
It should be noted that some religious groups openly state, especially those of Hindu and Buddhist origin, that they seek to improve the natural human mind by spiritual exercises. Intense spiritual exercises have an effect on the mind, for example by leading to an altered state of consciousness.
Psychologists, sociologists, most ex-members of purported cults and most anti-cult activists now accept that the brainwashing theory has been discredited. Some anti-cult activists, like Steven Hassan started using the term mind control as a more modern alternative.
The word brainwashed is still informally and pejoratively used to describe someone who holds strong ideas that which the speaker considers to be implausible and completely resistant to evidence, common sense, experience and logic. This is especially when the speaker believes that the ideas of the allegedly brainwashed person developed under external influence e.g. books, TV programs, other people or a religious organization.
The idea was central to the 1962 movie The Manchurian Candidate in which a soldier was turned into an assassin through brainwashing. It is also central to The Ipcress File, where Michael Cain tries to resist being re-programmed.
The Korean war and the origin of the term
See also Professor Hadden's online article, The Brainwashing Controversy (see link at end of article).Brainwashing by cults
Informal use
Dramatization
See also
References and external links