Political or Social Power
(c) INFLUENCER’S METHODS [WHAT/
HOW]
“Foot in the Door” [Small request, then
larger one]
“Door-in-the Face” [Large request, then
small one]
“Help Me Help You”
“Won’t You Help?”
“Don’t You Want to Do the Right Thing?”
“I’m Really Depending on You”
“This May Be Your Only Chance”
“Everyone’s Doing It” [“Don’t Be Left
Behind”]
“God Has Selected You”
“Love-Bombing”
“Grooming”/Progression of Seduction
–The Bait
–Building Trust
–Sweetening the Scam
–Closing the Fraud
(d) CIRCUMSTANCES [WHERE/WHEN]
Location
Control of Physical Environment
Control of Information (Input and Output)
Access to Independent Advice
Frequency, Duration, and Nature of the
Contacts
(e) INFLUENCEE’S RECEPTIVITY/
VULNERABILITY [WHO]5
5 Brown, Scheflin, and Hammond (1998) identify six different
types of compliance with suggestions:
(a) Source Credibility
Expertise
Training and Experience
Familiarity [agrees with your prior beliefs]
Charisma
Personality Type (Individual Differences)
Hypnotic Induction Profile (HIP)
Revised Stanford Profile Scales of Hypnotic
Susceptibility, Forms I and II
Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales
(f) CONSEQUENCES [WHAT]
Financial
Behavioral
Ideological
Emerging Scientific Support for
Brainwashing and Undue Influence
Events of the past decade and in process today
raise the interesting prospect that courts and
others may be more responsive to claims of
brainwashing and undue influence in
psychological, as opposed to financial,
situations. For example, Kathleen Taylor’s
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
(2004) invites neuroscientists to study the
physiological implications of brainwashing and
other forms of extreme social influence. Can
brainwashing be described and understood from
inside the brain by examining the physiological
changes that occur when methods of extreme
influence are employed to alter a person’s
thoughts and beliefs? Taylor poses five
psychological questions she believes deserve
neuroscientific investigation:
(a) Why are some people more susceptible to
extreme influence, while others more easily
resist?
(b) Which techniques are most effective against
which particular individuals?
Authenticity/Sincerity
Perceived Status [Awards Appointments]
(b) Post-Event Misinformation Effect
(c) Interrogatory Suggestibility
(d) Hypnotic Suggestibility
(e) Exposure to Systematic and Sustained Influences
(f) Brainwashing/Coercive Persuasion/Extreme Influence
78 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015

(c) With brainwashing as an individual model,
can mass mind control be orchestrated?
(d) How close is science to the possibility of
ultimate control of the mind?
(e) How can a person resist brainwashing
methods?
Whether such studies will clarify or cloud our
understanding of extreme-influence processes
remains to be seen. What is important, however,
is that brainwashing is a concept that is
attracting the attention of a whole new group of
scientific researchers.
Another book brings together substantial
research on more benign aspects of suggestion
and interaction. The Science of Social Influence
(Pratkanis, 2007) and the appearance of the
journal Influence make a good case for the fact
that sufficient psychological research data exists
to support claims that expert testimony on
matters of influence, from the conversational to
the coercive, can meet the legal standards of
admissibility.
Put another way, psychology and sociology have
now produced data-based and theory-tested
explanations of how influence works, or does
not work, depending on the variables that fit
within the SIM. The days when brainwashing
can be called mere rhetoric or an outmoded
piece of political propaganda may be coming to
an end.
Perhaps even more important is the expansion of
interest in influence theory brought about by
recent international events. Cult stories still
arouse some interest in the media, but the
headlines now involve terrorism and
fundamentalism. The old question has returned:
How can ordinary people be turned into
religious/political zealots who engage in suicide
bombings and violent acts of terror against
innocent citizens? The research literature on this
important topic has increased exponentially.
Many government officials are now more
willing to hear from thought-reform experts as
problems in their countries increase due to
extensive and intensive indoctrination with
fundamentalist ideas. In short, unlike in the past,
when belonging to a cultic group might have
been involuntary, but not externally dangerous,
in today’s world there is much to fear unless we
understand and thwart brainwashing.
Other headlines may bode well for the
resurrection of interest in brainwashing and the
understanding of the science behind it. Two
examples immediately come to mind. First, after
several decades of horrific child molestations by
religious leaders, and the cover-ups that have
shielded the full extent of the problem, we now
can talk about the concept known as grooming
(Weber, 2014). Grooming is not relegated just to
child sexual abuse, nor to such abuse by priests.
Studying the gradual process by which innocent
youths are converted into victims enables
researchers to shed light on aspects of the more
comprehensive brainwashing process.
A second, though related, example is human
trafficking, which has become an international
problem and disgrace. Professor Kim (2011) has
articulated many relevant connections between
grooming, undue influence, and situational
coercion. My point is that people who would
have had little reason to talk with each other
previously—the brainwashing specialists, the
terrorism fighters, the child protectors—
suddenly find they have much common ground.
Because the attacks on mental integrity persist
and have become more widespread and
dangerous, we unfortunately seem to have
entered a new era of interest in thought reform
and undue influence. The need for the work that
we do as experts testifying in defense of human
rights is greater than ever.
Conclusion
United States Supreme Court Justice Robert H.
Jackson made a statement that is as true today as
when he wrote it more than 60 years ago:
But we must not forget that in our
country are evangelists and zealots of
many different political, economic and
religious persuasions whose fanatical
conviction is that all thought is divinely
classified into two kinds—that which is
their own and that which is false and
dangerous. (American Communications
Association v. Douds, 1950)
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 79