Brainwashing__The_Science_of_Thought_Control

Brainwashing:The Science of Thought Control -- Kathleen TaylorIn Brainwashing, Kathleen Taylor brings together for the first time the worlds of neuroscience and social psychology to examine the way humans have attempted throughout history to influence and control the thoughts of others. The techniBrainwashingTHE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT CONTROLKathleen taylorOXFORDUNIVERSITY PRESSOXFORDGreat Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,tion by piOxford New YorkKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine vietnamOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Pressn the UK and in certain other countriesPublished in the United statesby Oxford University Press Inc, New YorkC Kathleen Taylor, 2004The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press(makerFirst published 2004First published as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2006All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Pressor as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriatereprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproductionoutside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights DepartmentOxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or coverand you must impose the same condition on any acquirerBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataData availableLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataData availablePrinted in Great Britain byClays Ltd, St. Ives plcISBN0-1992047809780-19920478613579108642ContentsList of figuresPrefabPart I: Torture and seduction1 The birth of a word2 God or the group?3 The power of persuasion4 Hoping to hea5 'I suggest, you persuade, he brainwashes6 Brainwashing and influence95Part II: The traitor in your skull1037 Our ever-changing brains1058 Webs and new worlds1279 Swept away14710 The power of stop-and-think16711 That freedom thing187Part III: Freedom and control20512 Victims and predators20713 Mind factories14 Science and nightmare23315 Taking a stand247References287Further reading301Index307FiguresFigure 1.1 BrainwashingFigure 1.2 Thought reformFigure 7. 1 Two neurons connected by a synapse108Figure 7. 2 The cell and its world109,110Figure 7.3 Synaptic transmission112Figure 7.4 Outline of a human brain114Figure 9.1 Emotion-related processing in the brain157Figure 9.2 The anatomy of emotion161Figure 9.3 Connections between emotion-processing areas163Figure 10.1 The prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate168Figure 10.2 Brain areas involved in eye movement processing171Figure 10.3 The eye movement map in the superior colliculus172Figure 10.4 Simple and complex visual stimuli174Figure 10.5 Brain control of saccadic eye movements179Figure 10.6 The influence of history inputs on eye movements180Figure 10.7 PFC activity over time181Figure 11.1 The Necker cube illusion194PrefaceWhile I was writing this book it became apparent that people's reactions to theidea of a book about brainwashing almost always fell into one of two categoriesThe first, much larger, group said How fascinating!and asked lots of questionsThe second reacted derisively. Brainwashing? You do know it's all hogwash,don t you?Obviously i don t think so or i wouldn t have written this book, but it iscertainly fair to say that brainwashing has some dubious, even seedy, associa-tions. Like consciousness and emotion, until recently it has been consideredunworthy of scientific attention, the product of deranged conspiracy theorists orat best, peculiar political circumstances. But brainwashing is much, much morethan that. At its heart is a malignant idea, the dream of totally controlling ahuman mind which affects all of us one way or another. brainwashing is theltimate invasion of privacy: it seeks to control not only how people act but whatthey think It arouses our deepest fears, threatening the loss of freedom and evendentity. Yet we know remarkably little about it. Given the advances in ourscientific understanding of brains and their behaviours since the heyday of brain-washing studies in the 1950S, it is more than time we took another look at thismysterious and terrifying phenomenonThe book is divided into three parts. Part I: Torture and seduction( Chapters1-6)focuses on the history and social psychology of brainwashing. The termitself originally referred to political programmes in Communist China and Koreabut the concept was too good to waste and before long allegations of brainwashing were being hurled at any activity which involved changing minds Are suchclaims justified? Brainwashing investigates a number of domains religion, politicsdvertising and the media, education, mental health, the military, the criminaljustice system, domestic violence, and torture. We discover that brainwashing isan extreme form of social influence which uses mechanisms increasingly studiedand understood by social psychologists, and that such influence can vary hugely