Fornits
General Interest => Thought Reform => Topic started by: Awake on October 29, 2011, 11:34:22 PM
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Experimental Timeline Project: Brainwashing
I had the idea to enlist the help of Fornits to help in attempting to formulate a timeline of important historical people and events that pertain to brainwashing, thought reform, coercive persuasion, mind control and other elements thereof that may help to put chronological perspective on the subject. In this first phase of development any pertinent subject matter can be submitted from any time period. Eventually, hopefully, the blanks can be filled in, and the timeline can be under continuous revision. Perhaps when the list has been refined to a point, it can be re-posted as a complete project.
I am not sure how successfully this will turn out, but I have found mind control etc. to be a complicated subject, and with a lot of history to discuss. It is hard to categorize it, and there are many overlapping events and influences. I am hoping this will help overcome those problems. One thing I request is that the presented subject matter be offered in a brief form, like a summary or abstract, with links to facts. If you post subject matter that requires further details, discussion, or controversy, please post them in a separate topic with a link.
So without further adieu,
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Here is my first submission.
1918- 1921 Ivan Povlov and Artificially Induced Neurosis in Dogs. –
Povlov discovered he could induce what he termed “artificial neurosis” in dogs by overstraining the “excitory” or “inhibitory” processes, or quickly alternating excitation and inhibition from which he drew an analogy with the human manifestations of catatonia and schizophrenia. A famous experiment in 1921 trained dogs to discern between a circle and an elipses for a food reward. Gradually the circles and elipses were changed to be more and more similar. In time the dogs became confused and neurotic, and eventually lost the ability to determine between obvious elipses and circles. They exhibited excitation, and were no longer calm during experiments. The dogs become “agitated, barkes, salivates, bites at its harness, and generally goes beserk. When placed back in the kennel, it may remain "insane" for months or years.”
http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/pavlov.html (http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/pavlov.html)
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography, Oxford Companion to the Mind.
http://www.answers.com/topic/ivan-pavlov (http://www.answers.com/topic/ivan-pavlov)
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:on phone: I think it is important to emphasize, as you mentioned, that "there are many overlapping events and influences."
Many of these important events, key figures, general cultural trends, etc. get influenced by certain sources and ... influence others, as well as said sources in turn, so it's not always a clearcut linear extrapolation or evolution or progression, etc. etc.
I also think that economic conditions, via incentive as well as palliative pressure, play a far greater role in all this than might be readily apparent in a purely academic or historical consideration.
Just had to put in my two cents 'bout that... Carry on!
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Yeah, I know this is somewhat of a broad, ambitious project. Like you emphasize, Ursus, the many overlapping influences. And NOSOB, you are speaking of the very broad scope historically and culturally. Certainly there will be a lot of questions as to where it starts and ends. But that was originally the nature of studying mind control, drawing from any and all of the great innovative minds of the day. I think looking at what they were looking at, and placing dates and times can identify some trends. It’s a start, and is not something available currently.
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They deserve the publicity for their work. ;D
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1931- 1941 Kurt Lewin, Tamara Dembo: The Relationship Between Frustration and Regression.
Lewin and his student Tamara Dembo devise experiments to study the effects of inducing frustration in order to produce regression as it concerns stages of development in a subject. Regression being defined as opposite to development, and development seen as increase in variety of behavior, increase in hierarchal organizations, and extension of area activities and interests.
Lewin used the term “action units” to identify how people learn and develop to interact with their environment. Exemplifying this are experiments in task development and interruption. One, in which a subject must perform a series of actions that eventually become habitual, identifies the growth in size of action units, the subject no longer needs to maintain consciousness of each individual step, thus with repetition the subject moves through the task with more continuity and the number of units of action become less until the entire task comprises a single action unit. Upon interrupting the task by altering the sequence of events (i.e. pull the lever instead of push) the subject finds they must consciously fight the urge to push the lever, and distraction of the subjects attention will lead to errors. This can be compared to unconscious motivation.
In a related experiment Lewin and Dembo interrupted children playing with “highly desireable toys” and substituted “less desireable toys”, moreover the desireable toys were kept in view of the children. The result was frustration, regression in the quality of the children’s play, or the action units diminish in size. This is was purportedly because the children were still “psychologically involved in the interrupted activity of playing with the desirable toys.”
Probably the most interesting experiment was conducted by Dembo (1931) in which she directs her subjects to solve a problem which is in fact impossible to solve. When they become thoroughly frustrated and request to leave the experimenter excercises authority and asserts they can solve the problem if they just try. (the relationship between experimenter and subject is compared with Milgram’s obedience studies and Zimbardo’s prison experiment.) Provided that a barrier prevent the subject from leaving the experiment, Dembo observed that the mounting tension destroys “the boundaries which ordinarily distinguish self from other, reality from unreality, and one intention system of activity from another.” In this situation a different kind of regression occurs which Dembo termed “primitization of the lifespace” leading subjects to “act in irrational ways, exploding in anger or performing behavior which does not really lead to the goal.” This was considered influential in realizing the power of arousing emotion to transform a person and their perception of the situation they are in, their “lifespace”, and would be reflected in Lewin’s other work on personality formation, group dynamics, and sensitivity training.
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/lewin.htm (http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/lewin.htm)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... KpxKDQ2b7g (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=lewin%20lost%20to%20america&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdialnet.unirioja.es%2Fservlet%2Ffichero_articulo%3Fcodigo%3D111756%26orden%3D0&ei=THWtTrD4PKXLsQLDo_SJDw&usg=AFQjCNGgTyuatDbAwXpXaA2fKpxKDQ2b7g)
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kurt_Lewin.aspx (http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kurt_Lewin.aspx)
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NOSOB - That list brings up a good question of what is going on in the Tampa-Orlando Region. I can only think that the region became a hotbed of CIA activity during the Cuban Revolution and that powerful or up-coming political families moved to the front lines to stake their claim. Looks to be a major reason. Amway, Seed, Straight, Scientology - if there was a place that guaranteed safety, it would have been under the shadow of the CIA.
We know Utah is a hotbed of very similar byproducts (MSM, TBS, cults) - namely out of religion, marginalisation, isolation and limited opportunities for basic industries (agriculture.) Is there also an element of this in central Florida?
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Yeah Utah is a WASTELAND..
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When I met my group I got that we feeling—
Soon's we gathered 'round. I lost that me feeling.
The moment the leader spoke, my tension cleared
—All insecurity broke when he appeared.
Consensus is consensed in every day's meeting,
Aggression Is aggressed in every member's greeting—
There'll be no autocracy on anyone's part.
'Cause that we feeling is here in our heart. (National Training Laboratories. 1949)
http://www.psicopolis.com/Kurt/groupdynamics.htm (http://www.psicopolis.com/Kurt/groupdynamics.htm)
Lot's of history here
Creepy.. T-group is short for therapy group, i take it?
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When I met my group I got that we feeling—
Soon's we gathered 'round. I lost that me feeling.
The moment the leader spoke, my tension cleared
—All insecurity broke when he appeared.
Consensus is consensed in every day's meeting,
Aggression Is aggressed in every member's greeting—
There'll be no autocracy on anyone's part.
'Cause that we feeling is here in our heart. (National Training Laboratories. 1949)
http://www.psicopolis.com/Kurt/groupdynamics.htm (http://www.psicopolis.com/Kurt/groupdynamics.htm)
Lot's of history here
Creepy.. T-group is short for therapy group, i take it?
No. I believe it's short for "training group," as in RE-EDUCATION (yep, that's what National Training Laboratories called it).
As the decades passed, however, and more psych-oriented trainers got involved, I s'pose one could say that T-groups frequently devolved into "therapy groups."
NTL often called their reeducation efforts "therapy for normals," hence confusing the issue...
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… On Kurt Lewin and his legacy. A snippet from
Group Dynamics, T- groups and Sensitivity Training
An Agent of Change
As much as LSD was a major agent of change for the ’60s, the “Human Potential Movement” also made significant contributions to the upheaval of that era and beyond. Beginning in the ’40s, German psychologist, Kurt Lewin, developed “Sensitivity Training” or “T-groups” to show how people “could be socially and psychologically manipulated to give up their souls....” In the ’40s he had worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that was concerned with the “psychological attack against the moral and spiritual defenses of a nation.” And indeed, Sensitivity Training changes a person’s ideals and values by invalidation: refuting, denying, degrading or discrediting his values and certainties and replacing them with another’s values or ideas.
Adherents, such as psychologist Ed Schein, who studied brainwashing techniques in Korea, admitted that it was modeled on Pavlov’s brainwashing techniques. In an introduction to one of his papers on Sensitivity Training, Schein says that this method includes “coercive persuasion in the form of thought reform or brainwashing as well as a multitude of less coercive, informal patterns.”
Developed by Lewin through the National Training Laboratory (NTL) under the National Education Association (NEA), Sensitivity Training earned many names: Group Therapy, Conflict Management, Planned Change, Mind Set, Nude Therapy, Marathon Therapy, Group Dynamics, Role Playing, Social Psychology, Human Relations Lab, Sensory Awareness Groups, Conflict Resolution and Encounter Groups, to cite some.
The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, an influential focal point during the “Hippie” movement of the sixties, was an offshoot of this development. According to Sensitivity Training advocate, Abraham M. Maslow, President of the American Psychological Association, Esalen became “the most important educational institution in the world.” It inspired several thousands of encounter groups.
In 1975, English psychiatrist and LSD guru, Humphrey Osmond wrote: “The Human Potential Movement, and variously called sensitivity training, encounter groups, T-groups... appears to be gaining in popularity in our society. Many of these interpersonal encounters are frequently regarded as ’acidless trips’ or another means of expanding consciousness.... In the past few years especially, an increasing number of reports suggest that such group encounters can precipitate psychiatric disturbances in some participants. Many of the descriptions of these disturbances appear compellingly similar to those experienced with psychoactive drugs, especially the psychedelics.”
“Expanding consciousness” became simply a deceptive name for any activity, which changed an individual’s or group’s value system, whether through drugs or sensitivity-styled groups. Consistent with psychiatry’s and psychology’s broader behavioral modification purposes, the effects of both mind-altering drugs and group therapies have caused major upheaval in all areas of society including education, family, law, justice, morals, drugs, crime, and religion. And, because of their influence, the arts and entertainment industries have been heavily utilized to these purposes.
http://www.hrfolks.com/knowledgebank/re ... groups.pdf (http://www.hrfolks.com/knowledgebank/research/groupdynamics%20and%20t%20groups.pdf)
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Another little bit on Kurt Lewin and Edgar Schein……
Lewin/Schein’s Change Theory
by Ross A. Wirth, Ph.D. (2004)
Kurt Lewin theorized a three-stage model of change that has come to be known as the unfreezing-change-refreeze model that requires prior learning to be rejected and replaced. Edgar Schein provided further detail for a more comprehensive model of change calling this approach “cognitive redefinition.”
Stage 1 – becoming motivated to change (unfreezing) This phase of change is built on the theory that human behavior is established by
past observational learning and cultural influences. Change requires adding new forces for change or removal of some of the existing factors that are at play in perpetuating the behavior. This unfreezing process has three sub-processes that relate to a readiness and motivation to change.
• Disconfirmation where present conditions lead to dissatisfaction, such as not meeting personal goals. However, the larger the gap between what is believed and what needs to be believed for change to occur, the more likely the new information will be ignored.
• Previous beliefs now being seen as invalid creates “survival anxiety.” However, this may not be sufficient to prompt change if learning anxiety is present.
• Learning anxiety triggers defensiveness and resistance due to the pain of having to unlearn what had been previously accepted. Three stages occur in response to learning anxiety: denial; scapegoating & passing the buck; and maneuvering & bargaining.
It is necessary to move past the possible anxieties for change to progress. This can be accomplished by either having the survival anxiety be greater than the learning anxiety or, preferably, learning anxiety could be reduced.
Stage 2 – change what needs to be changed (unfrozen and moving to a new state) Once there is sufficient dissatisfaction with the current conditions and a real desire to make some change exists, it is necessary to identify exactly what needs to be changed. Three possible impacts from processing new information are: words take on new or expanded meaning, concepts are interpreted within a broader context, and there is an adjustment in the scale used in evaluating new input.
A concise view of the new state is required to clearly identify the gap between the present state and that being proposed. Activities that aid in making the change include imitation of role models and looking for personalized solutions through trial-and-error learning.
Stage 3 – making the change permanent (refreezing) Refreezing is the final stage where new behavior becomes habitual, which
includes developing a new self-concept & identity and establishing new interpersonal relationships.
http://www.entarga.com/orgchange/lewinschein.pdf (http://www.entarga.com/orgchange/lewinschein.pdf)
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… Ok, one more. I believe this is a … VERY important piece of Kurt Lewin’s history, particularly as it concerns his connection to Lawrence K. Frank, who organized the Macy Conferences.
Lewin, Kurt
Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | 2008
After 1933 . Because Lewin had served at the front during World War I, he was nominally exempt from the provisions of the Nazi civil service law of 7 April 1933, which mandated the dismissal of persons of Jewish descent from state employment. His institute head, the Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler, wished to retain him in Berlin, but Lewin recognized the danger for Jews who remained in Germany. <snip>
Shortly after he left his position in Berlin, Lewin received a stipend at Cornell University, where he worked on children’s eating habits with support from the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars and the Rockefeller Foundation. Lawrence K. Frank, a foundation official who had met Lewin in Berlin and had been impressed by his experiments with children, then obtained a new grant in 1935 that sent Lewin to the Child Welfare Research Station at the University of Iowa. There he soon received a tenured appointment, rose to the rank of full professor in 1939, and remained until 1944. Both the Cornell center and the Iowa station were participants in a large-scale research program in child development that had been maintained with Rockefeller funding since the mid-1920s.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kurt_Lewin.aspx (http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kurt_Lewin.aspx)
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Leon Festinger and Cognitive Dissonance
1942- Festinger received his masters degree in psychology after studying under the prominent Kurt Lewin. He continued to serve as Assistant Proffessor to Lewin at the University of Michigan’s Group Dynamics Center, eventually taking the position of Associate Professor when Lewin died in 1947. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger)
1956- Leon Festinger first coins the term “Cognitive Dissonance” in a publication entitled “When Prophecy Fails” which studied a doomsday cult who’s leader was involved with Dianetics, predecessor to Scientology, and incorporated those ideas into the cult. She claimed to have received messages from alien beings that told her the exact end date of the world, Dec. 21, 1954, and that only the faithful would be saved by a UFO. Members made strong commitments to the belief, left families, money and possessions. Festinger infiltrated the cult to study “the arousal of dissonance” that would occur when the prophecy failed.
Festinger identified Cognitive Dissonance as the discomfort of holding onto conflicting ideas simultaneously and used this term to account for the psychological effects of disconfirmation of fervently held beliefs. He proposed that, in order to reduce the dissonance, people will be motivated to alter their attitudes, beliefs, and/or behavior. He also theorized that proselytizing is a way people attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance, converting others to their belief serves as confirmation.
Festinger observed this sequence of events:
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Prior to December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers. The group evolves a belief system—provided by the automatic writing from the planet Clarion—to explain the details of the cataclysm, the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in which the group would be saved from the disaster.
December 20. The group expects a visitor from outer space to call upon them at midnight and to escort them to a waiting spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to great lengths to remove all metallic items from their persons. As midnight approaches, zippers, bra straps, and other objects are discarded. The group waits.
12:05 A.M., December 21. No visitor. Someone in the group notices that another clock in the room shows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet midnight.
12:10 A.M. The second clock strikes midnight. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away.
4:00 A.M. The group has been sitting in stunned silence. A few attempts at finding explanations have failed. Keech begins to cry.
4:45 A.M. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Keech. It states, in effect, that the God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off: "The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction."
Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called; interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible. “ –
- http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... Tzmg90N5Xw (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=leon%20festinger&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLeon_Festinger&ei=-_61Tvj3FMfHsQLVufjbAw&usg=AFQjCNF7ax5YiLFRCv5kdHSuTzmg90N5Xw)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails)
Another famous experiment by Leon Festinger studied dissonance resulting from forced public compliance theorizing that “if a person makes a public statement which is dissonant with his beliefs in order to receive a small reward, there is little justification for having made the statement.” The theory leads to the prediction that, “he will change his private belief in the direction of the public statement; increasing the size of the reward will decrease the degree to which he will change his private opinion.”
In this experiment subjects perform a series of boring, tedious tasks. After finishing the experimenter falsely “explained the purpose of the experiment.” They are told the purpose of the experiment is to test whether people perform better if they are told previously that the tasks are interesting and enjoyable than if told nothing at all. Each subject is told they are in the ‘control’ condition, meaning they had not been told beforehand that he tasks were interesting.
The experimenter explains that in the ‘experimental’ condition an “accomplice poses as a subject who has just finished the experiment and tells the waiting subject that the task was a lot of fun.” The experimenter then explains that another subject is waiting to be tested but the “accomplice” has not shown up yet. So the subject is asked if he would “do him a favor and substitute for the accomplice and tell the waiting subject that the tasks are interesting and fun.”
The subjects were run in three conditions. (a) the subject is paid $1 for serving as accomplice (b) a $20 condition (c) a control in which the subject was not asked to lie to the waiting subject. Upon interviewing the subjects, the results supported the theory. In the control, and the $20 condition, the subjects felt the tasks were unenjoyable. In the $1 condition however the subjects rated the tasks as rather enjoyable, significantly more positive than the other two conditions, supporting the theory that the dissonance actually caused the subjects to modify their private beliefs. As well it was observed that if “too much force was applied to elicit the overt behavior, the dissonance aroused is correspondingly less and private change in opinion does not occur.”
- Group Dynamics: Research and Theory. Dorwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander. Harper & Row Publishers 1968.
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