ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54208/0008 3
comes from a variant of Asch’s (1951, 177-190). well-
known experiment, Solomon Asch, showed that
participants who were asked to compare the length of
a line with a series of other lines of different lengths
gave a wrong answer in about 40% of cases if they were
preceded by accomplices of the experimenter who had
given deliberately wrong answers. The experimental
participants conformed to the answers of the others
even though they were obviously wrong, an effect
usually attributed to normative influence and the desire
not to break with social norms (Deutsch &Gerard,
1955).
However, in a variant of the experiment, Asch (1952)
found that even one accomplice who gave the right
answer among all the others who gave the wrong one
reduced the number of errors in the experimental
participants by two-thirds. This suggests that the
presence of like-minded people who confirm our
perceptions significantly increases the probability
of disobedience in situations such as Milgram’s
experiment. It could be inferred that obedience,
such as in Milgram’s research, can only occur in the
laboratory, where people are shielded from outside
information and influences. However, there are other
situations in which this can occur, namely in cults
or other similarly coercive environments. In groups
defined this way, closure to the outside world does not
presuppose physical delimitation. In his classic study
of thought reform in Maoist China, Robert Jay Lifton
(2012) indicated “milieu control” as a prerequisite for
social pressure and conformity, including in wider
society.
Cults and persuasion
A frequently published and cited author on cults
and persuasion is the sociologist of new religions,
Eileen Barker, who is associated, because of some of
her early research, with a strand of criticism of the
concept of “mind control.” Barker’s (1984) classic
study, The Making of a Moonie, was conducted on
Reverend Moon’s Unification Church, whose members
are commonly referred to as Moonies. Barker (1984)
found that of more than 1,000 people stopped on the
street who attended their first Moonie event (usually
a luncheon), about 33.3 percent went on to the next
workshop. About 10 percent said they would join, and
about 5 percent were still full members two years later.
Barker (1984) found this figure rather disappointing as it
showed that there is no such extraordinary mechanism
of persuasion, such as brainwashing. It suggests that the
followers are not manipulated as quickly or as much
as some stereotypes of cults might suggest. Barker’s
(1984) assessments are valid in refuting the hypothesis
of a specific and infallible technique for reconstructing
individuals. Such a conception is like that narrated in
the 1962 movie The Manchurian Candidate. In the
movie, a brainwashed Korean War hero had been
programmed—reconstructed, in the language of the
movie —to assassinate a candidate for the presidency
of the United States. This is seen as an unrealistic
conception of mind control, not only by the critics of
the concept (for example, Richardson and Introvigne,
2001) but even by proponents of mind manipulation
such as Lifton (2012), whose concept of thought
reform is something much more subtle and based on a
combination of coercion from the outside and an inner
exhortation that exploits a person’s feelings of guilt,
shame, and the need to belong (Kruglanski &Orehek,
2011). However, an analysis of the literature reveals
that a different conception of manipulation is possible,
one that sees mind control as a process of persuasion
that takes place precisely by selecting, in successive and
orderly steps, the most willing subjects and is carried
out on the final recruits, operating as indoctrination in
a psychological and relational context, which is by now
profoundly changed (Singer, 2003).
Joining the Moonies, for example, involves four
separate decisions. Potential recruits are first contacted
individually and invited to a two-day weekend
workshop. This workshop is followed by another
seven-day workshop, then a twelve-day workshop, and
finally, real membership. As in the Milgram experiment,
the decision is made in slow stages and through slight
deviations from the previous choice. This progression
is related to the progressive variation in the salience of
the options of obedience and disobedience, as will be
shown in the analysis of research that follows.
Galanter’s (1979) classic study demonstrates this gradual
restructuring of thinking towards commitment. In this
study, also of the Moonies, of the 104 guests in the first
two days of the workshop, 74 did not continue. Of the
comes from a variant of Asch’s (1951, 177-190). well-
known experiment, Solomon Asch, showed that
participants who were asked to compare the length of
a line with a series of other lines of different lengths
gave a wrong answer in about 40% of cases if they were
preceded by accomplices of the experimenter who had
given deliberately wrong answers. The experimental
participants conformed to the answers of the others
even though they were obviously wrong, an effect
usually attributed to normative influence and the desire
not to break with social norms (Deutsch &Gerard,
1955).
However, in a variant of the experiment, Asch (1952)
found that even one accomplice who gave the right
answer among all the others who gave the wrong one
reduced the number of errors in the experimental
participants by two-thirds. This suggests that the
presence of like-minded people who confirm our
perceptions significantly increases the probability
of disobedience in situations such as Milgram’s
experiment. It could be inferred that obedience,
such as in Milgram’s research, can only occur in the
laboratory, where people are shielded from outside
information and influences. However, there are other
situations in which this can occur, namely in cults
or other similarly coercive environments. In groups
defined this way, closure to the outside world does not
presuppose physical delimitation. In his classic study
of thought reform in Maoist China, Robert Jay Lifton
(2012) indicated “milieu control” as a prerequisite for
social pressure and conformity, including in wider
society.
Cults and persuasion
A frequently published and cited author on cults
and persuasion is the sociologist of new religions,
Eileen Barker, who is associated, because of some of
her early research, with a strand of criticism of the
concept of “mind control.” Barker’s (1984) classic
study, The Making of a Moonie, was conducted on
Reverend Moon’s Unification Church, whose members
are commonly referred to as Moonies. Barker (1984)
found that of more than 1,000 people stopped on the
street who attended their first Moonie event (usually
a luncheon), about 33.3 percent went on to the next
workshop. About 10 percent said they would join, and
about 5 percent were still full members two years later.
Barker (1984) found this figure rather disappointing as it
showed that there is no such extraordinary mechanism
of persuasion, such as brainwashing. It suggests that the
followers are not manipulated as quickly or as much
as some stereotypes of cults might suggest. Barker’s
(1984) assessments are valid in refuting the hypothesis
of a specific and infallible technique for reconstructing
individuals. Such a conception is like that narrated in
the 1962 movie The Manchurian Candidate. In the
movie, a brainwashed Korean War hero had been
programmed—reconstructed, in the language of the
movie —to assassinate a candidate for the presidency
of the United States. This is seen as an unrealistic
conception of mind control, not only by the critics of
the concept (for example, Richardson and Introvigne,
2001) but even by proponents of mind manipulation
such as Lifton (2012), whose concept of thought
reform is something much more subtle and based on a
combination of coercion from the outside and an inner
exhortation that exploits a person’s feelings of guilt,
shame, and the need to belong (Kruglanski &Orehek,
2011). However, an analysis of the literature reveals
that a different conception of manipulation is possible,
one that sees mind control as a process of persuasion
that takes place precisely by selecting, in successive and
orderly steps, the most willing subjects and is carried
out on the final recruits, operating as indoctrination in
a psychological and relational context, which is by now
profoundly changed (Singer, 2003).
Joining the Moonies, for example, involves four
separate decisions. Potential recruits are first contacted
individually and invited to a two-day weekend
workshop. This workshop is followed by another
seven-day workshop, then a twelve-day workshop, and
finally, real membership. As in the Milgram experiment,
the decision is made in slow stages and through slight
deviations from the previous choice. This progression
is related to the progressive variation in the salience of
the options of obedience and disobedience, as will be
shown in the analysis of research that follows.
Galanter’s (1979) classic study demonstrates this gradual
restructuring of thinking towards commitment. In this
study, also of the Moonies, of the 104 guests in the first
two days of the workshop, 74 did not continue. Of the
