Take Back Your Life: Chapter 3: Understanding Thought Reform Part 2

by Lady Lee 10 Replies latest members private

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  Lady Lee

  For previous sections of this series go to:

  Captive Hearts, Captive Minds/Take Back Your Life

  A NOTE regarding the book. The book is being revised and updated and will get a new title; Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (previously titled Captive Hearts, Captive Minds and this is the title I am working with) by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias"

  Chapter 3: Understanding Thought Reform Part 2

  Conditions for a Thought-Reform Program

  After years of knocking on doors and offering the literature to people we know how little the message really attracts people. How are the JWs or any cult able to attain control over so much of a person’s life? On page 38 of the book there is a list of the necessary conditions. Dr. Singer points to 6 conditions as follows:

  1. Controlling an individual’s social and psychological envoronment, especially the person’s time.
  2. Placing an individual in a position of powerlessness within a high-control authoritarian system.
  3. Relying usually on a closed system of logic, which permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by executive order.
  4. Relying on unsophistication of the person being manipulated [that is, the person is unaware of the process], and he or she is pressed to adapt to the environment in increments that are sufficiently minor so that the person does not notice the changes.
  5. Eroding the confidence of a person’s perceptions
  6. Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences to promote the new learning or inhibit undesired previous behavior. Punishments usually are social ones, for example, shunning, social isolation, and humiliation (which are more effective in producing wanted behavior than beatings and death threats, although these do occur.

  Wow I can see the similarities. Do You? Where and how?

  Cults use thought-reform programs because they work. A cult may use various methods to control people.

  • Induced dissociation and other altered states (through speaking in tongues, chanting, trance induction via repeated affirmations, extended periods of meditation, lengthy denunciation sessions, publis trials, "hot seat" criticisms focusing on one individual, sexual abuse, torture, etc.)
  • Control of information going in and out of the group environment
  • Isolation from family and friends
  • Control of members’ financial resources
  • Sleep and food deprivation
  • Peer and leadership pressure
  • Extensive indoctrination sessions (through Bible lessons, political training, sales training, self-awareness lessons)
  • Rigid security regulations and daily rules (p. 39)

  Depending on the focus of the group they may use a different set of controls.

  Just looking at the list. I never used to think the WTS used isolation. In the article they published a few years ago they basically said that since they didn’t force people into remote indoctrination camps they weren’t a cult. The reality is that as soon as family and friends reject the Truth™ they are to be avoided or contact should be limited.

  Control of member’s finaces. They encourage people to NOT go to college or university. The pressure is to take minimal jobs that require a limted amount of time so thay can spend more time in service. People who do go on to post-secondary education are looked upon as "weak". And recently there is a huge effort to get people to hand over their money with no accounting for how it is spent.

  Dissociation

  One other control mechanism that cults use is Dissociation. Dissociation is a normal phenomenon. Daydreaming is something we all do and I know I did a lot of daydreaming when I went to meetings especially when I wasn’t falling asleep from the monotone that many JW speakers use.

  Cults have ways to induce dissociation in their members. After leaving the group people will also find themselves continuing to dissociate. Events in their present life can trigger a dissociative episode. Lifton refers to dissociation as "psychic numbing," where a part of the person is separated from the self. This might explain how parents can shun their parents with little or no emotion.

  Part 3 to come later
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  jgnat

  A big surprise for me was when I went to hear my husband speak for the first time at the Kingdom Hall. They had given him a horrid passage full of Old Testament Hebrew names. I thought it was a cruel joke foisted on him by careless elders. (But now I understand this is the standard section to test his pronunciation. Now, if I could only get him to stop saying GEE-hovah.) I was fully expecting a cool reception, based on how the elders had treated him in the past.

  But he received warm applause, claps on the back, and lots of congratulations all around.

  Cold then hot.

  That's what they are talking about, eh, Lady Lee?

  Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences to promote the new learning or inhibit undesired previous behavior.
• 

  Lady Lee

  Yup JG that's it. When Pavlov was busy studying dogs (the pairing of ringing a bell and providing food) and trying to figure out whether they responded better to rewards and punishments he came across a result that surprises most people. Intermittent rewards actually gave the strongest response. The "hope" of the possible reward is actually stronger than getting it every time or not getting it every time.

  When you stop to think about it I can see how that makes sense. If every time I ring a bell I give the reward "food" then I can assume that if I'm not hungry now I can get it later. If I never get the reward then why bother doing anything. But if I'm not sure I can't take the chance that this time I will get fed so I better go check because it might be a long time before they ring that bell again.

  It keeps people off balance and always on the edge waiting for the payoff.

  That would explain why people stay in even after the prophesies don't happen. Cuz maybe this time they are right so I better hang in there.just in case
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  jgnat

  After learning how Cognitive Dissonance works, I am embarrassed to say I've incorporated some of the concepts at work. People will actually be MORE loyal and MORE dedicated to a cause if they perceive it as a FAVOUR rather than as a direct reward.

  So I give out small thank-you cards and stickers for a job well done. It works.
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  stealyourface

  
  
  

  After learning how Cognitive Dissonance works, I am embarrassed to say I've incorporated some of the concepts at work. People will actually be MORE loyal and MORE dedicated to a cause if they perceive it as a FAVOUR rather than as a direct reward.

  Jgnat, you sly boots! Studies do confirm that people will give greater effort for minimum reward. http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/fac/uri.gneezy/vita/qjepayenough.pdf
  

  So I give out small thank-you cards and stickers for a job well done. It works.

  Give me a smiley face sticker over an empty title (publisher, pioneer or MS) any day!

  edited to add: Thanks Lady Lee, for a great series!
• 

  Lady Lee

  bttt
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  Jankyn

  What jgnat is talking about is called "intermittent reinforcement." It's surprisingly effective, mostly because it keeps the recipient on constant alert, looking for cues and clues to what response they can expect.

  My therapist has talked about it in terms of the unpredictability of the alcoholic home that some children grow up in. Because they never know what to expect, they develop a state of hyper-vigilance. It keeps them constantly trying for the approval they might get, even though there's an equal risk of rejection/abuse.

  Now, that really rings a bell. It's exactly the sort of thing that goes on in the hall, at least with new studies. First, there's the love-bombing, when everything they do is wonderful. The first time they get ignored or told that it's just expected for them to do x, they're confused. But they remember the wonderful response they used to get, so they try harder. But the wonderful response becomes harder to get, or worse yet, shows up when they don't expect it. Before too long, the new publisher is acting like an abused child: eager to please, hyper-vigilant, and blaming him/herself for a failure to get approval--or for receiving disapproval. And so they try harder...as the WT is exhorting them to try harder!

  Of course, those of us who were children just acted like abused children.

  Jankyn
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  Sentient

  My life experience being raised as a Witness has led to my greatest interest being the study of the mind and why people believe and behave the way they do. Fields like cognitive science, psychology and sociology are different leaves of the same tree. I've experienced severe cognitive dissonance and PTSD, and usually can recognize now what is happening when I feel a certain way which puts me more in control of the situation than before. The terms we use to describe these things will probably have changed 20 years from now, but the cause and effect are the same.
  Jankyn, that is very true about the result of extreme volatility in the home. My own family life with a mentally ill Witness father and extremely insecure Witness mother was such an emotional holocaust that being at the KH was a great comfort by comparison, but only in recent times can I see how it was such a viscious reinforcement of the inner turmoil and insecurity.
  jgnat, Using these techniques, you are on your way to controlling the world now! Seriously, eventually you begin to realize why the people in charge or making lots of money in this world are where they are...they understand and apply what they know about psychology and how others behave and react. I think of advertising, religion and national anthems. Did you know that when you are experiencing an intense emotion such at the climax of a moving song, your mind actually shifts to the same state as when you are in hypnosis, dramatically increasing the likelihood that your subconscious mind will accept a suggestion or idea? Think of what people are saying as they sing the pre-determined lyrics in church or at the KH. Maybe you could get everyone a songbook of jgnat songs? lol...but seriously it would work if you could get them to sing your songs several times a week. Or maybe someone could create a self-empowering, healing JWD Apostate songbook. Or wait! Use the same Kingdom songs but just substitute the lyrics! I don't think there is anything wrong with using these techniques if you are not using it to control others to their detriment. I plan to use what I am learning to benefit myself and others, and not myself at their expense. (note to self: NEVER BECOME THE LEADER OF A CULTISH GROUP!)
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  Lady Lee

  (note to self: NEVER BECOME THE LEADER OF A CULTISH GROUP!)

  This cracked me up.

  Coming from a highly dysfunctional abusive pre-JW home I knew the crap floating around my home gave me lots of tools to help others. It wasn't until I left the JWs that I realized I had to work on me first. And I'm not done yet.

  I have always thought that information is power. Now I KNOW it is power. Forced into silence for so many years of my life I refuse to be silent any longer. We cannot change what we do not acknowledge or understand.

  I tell ya, going through this book like this is helping me even though I read it before and have studied it many times. It should be an interesting read when the new book comes out. The publisher and the author says it is even better.
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  Lady Lee

  Part 3 can be found at

  Take Back Your Life: Chapter 3: Understanding Thought Reform Part 3