Fragile Realities

Fragile Realities

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FRAGILE REALITIES:

CONVERSION AND COMMITMENT

IN CULTS AND OTHER POWERFUL GROUPS

Leslie L. Downing, Ph.D.

March, 2006

Downing, L. L. (2005). A cusp catastrophe model of cult conversions, in D.O. O'Leary and G.S. McGhee (Eds.), War in Heaven, Heaven on Earth: Theories of the Apocalyptic, London: Equinox. 221-235.

Department of Psychology

State University of New York

College at Oneonta

Oneonta, New York 13820

Phone: (607) 433 2954 or

(607) 436 3273

Fax #: (607) 436 3753

E-mail: "DOWNINLL@ONEONTA. EDU"

FRAGILE REALITIES:

CONVERSION AND COMMITMENT

IN CULTS AND OTHER POWERFUL GROUPS

Leslie L. Downing, Ph.D.

SYNOPSIS

This book presents a social psychological treatment of the major controversies concerning issues of brainwashing, thought control, and coercive persuasion. It develops a framework for a more adequate understanding of conversion and commitment to ideologies, especially as these relate to cults and other powerful groups. There are a great number of other books on cults, most of which focus on a relatively small sample of group behavior and most of which lack a clear-cut theoretical framework. This book employs descriptive accounts of phenomena ranging from brainwashing of POW's in the Korean War, to the release of nerve gas in Tokyo subways by the Aum Shinrikyo cult of Japan. It also includes socially approved uses of conversion and commitment technologies such as are used in military training and in alcohol and drug rehabilitation, and it offers insights concerning the application of such methods for such purposes.

All major theories of conversion and of commitment are reviewed and the research evidence used to validate each is evaluated. Most of these theories and the data upon which they are based are found to be of some value in increasing our understanding of conversion and commitment in groups. None of these, however, provides the kind of comprehensive framework for understanding of cult related phenomena that it is now possible to construct.

The primary orientation of the book is grounded in decades of research and theory of social psychologists, especially in the areas of attitude structure and change, and in group dynamics. The research of social psychologists has emphasized experimental methods as a means of addressing specific issues relevant to validating theoretical alternatives. While much has been learned that is of critical importance for better understanding ideological conversion and commitment in the context of groups, surprisingly little has been done by social psychologists in recent decades to demonstrate the relevance of that accumulated knowledge for large-scale changes in individuals in real world contexts.

The early heroes of social psychology did not shy away from such daunting problems because they were difficult, and even though they had much less of a base upon which to build, they managed to make major contributions to our understanding of highly complex and important social phenomena, often in naturally occurring group settings. In the 1930's, for example, Kurt Lewin's field theory attempted in a single framework, to make sense out of the myriad of influences, in the person and in the person's external environment, including the groups in which they were embedded, all of which would have to be considered to adequately understand the behavior of a given individual. Theodore Newcomb, in the 1940's, developed a theory of reference group influences that was used to understand lifelong changes in individuals that could be traced to the social conditions existing early in their lives. Leon Festinger, in the 1950's, investigated the social influences operating in the construction of social reality. His later theory of cognitive dissonance, long associated in recent decades with narrowly defined experimental studies of changes in relatively unimportant attitudes and beliefs, was originally used to better understand the surprising consequences of the failure of prophesy in thousands of years of messianic movements.

The project set forth in this book is, perhaps, by contemporary standards, far too ambitious for a social psychological treatment. One cannot, after all, do experiments on ideological conversion. To generalize from the findings of experiments that have been done, all of which necessarily have a more narrow focus, to phenomena as complex as ideological conversion and commitment, is potentially risky. But currently we have advantages that the early heroes of social psychology did not have. We have not one or a few studies that are relevant to our larger purpose, but thousands of studies. And while no single study may warrant the generalizations we must necessarily make, it has become possible to make a compelling case for a theoretical treatment of these issues that is based upon the more than fifty years of relevant research and the substantial body of well established theory concerning basic processes that has been built upon that research.

By incorporating the most well established and supportable finding of researchers and theorists from the fields of sociology, psychiatry, the psychology of learning, cognitive psychology, and others, with decades of research by experimental social psychologists on the formation and change in attitude-belief systems and on group dynamics, this book develops a new social psychological theory of conversion and commitment to ideology.

Throughout the book, the social significance of issues concerning conversion and commitment are stressed, and where possible, real world examples of conversion and commitment to groups, to leaders, and to ideologies are presented. The special characteristics of cults that make them particularly potent as sources of conversion and commitment are highlighted, and suggestions for how potential recruits, parents, and government authorities might best respond to cults and to cult related conflicts are explored.

Finally, while this book focuses on cults and other powerful groups, it will become clear to readers that many of the processes seen to operate in such groups also operate in their own lives. It will also become clearer to other social psychologists that their discipline is capable of providing increased understanding of many social phenomena that have not of late been considered within their purview.

PREFACE

In past decades many events occurred which have directed attention to issues concerning ideological conversion. The most dramatic of these included the allegations of "brainwashing" by the Chinese communists, the conversion of Patricia Hearst to the views of her revolutionary kidnappers in the Symbionese Liberation Army, the widespread involvement of American young people in unusual religious cults, and the unparalleled influence of Jim Jones over the members of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, who at his instruction killed their children and themselves. Also of note, were the death of David Koresh and his followers, the Branch Davidians, in the assault on their Waco, Texas compound by agencies of the United States Government, the ritual killings of members of a European cult group, and the furor surrounding the death of the Rabbi Menachen Sneerson, believed be the Messiah by many thousands of his Brooklyn followers. Thefact that such phenomena not are not merely historical curiosities, but are of continuing importance was once again confirmed by the news of a Japanese cult, Aum Shinrikyo, lead by Shoku Asahara, which released the nerve gas, serin, into the Tokyo subway, killing ten and injuring over five thousand people. The turn of the millennium brought news of apocalyptic cults waiting for and at times hoping to bring about the end of the world as we know it. The tragedy of the World Trade Center, perpetrated by ardent followers of fundamentalist Islamic groups, and the suicide bombings in Iraq and at other places, primarily in the Middle East, remind us that these issues are still with us. It is a near certainty that activities of cults and other powerful groups will continue to be central to many of tomorrow's headlines as well.

Fragile Realities

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My interest in this topic started at the time of the Jonestown mass murder/suicide. At that time, in November of 1978, I was teaching a social psychology course and felt obligated to try to say something meaningful about this bizarre situation in which over 900 people had died. Followers had apparently killed their own children and then committed suicide at the order of their messianic leader, Jim Jones. How could people come to a point where they would be willing to obey such an order? Were these people crazy? Were they in a situation that was so powerful that anybody exposed to it would have done the same thing? Was there something peculiar about them as individuals that caused them to behave the way they did, or perhaps, that caused them to be in that kind of situation?

The news media were not very helpful at answering such questions. While they did a good job at uncovering the facts and the descriptive characteristics of what took place, explanations of why it happened always seemed to fall short. It was said that the Peoples Temple was a "cult," and that it had "brainwashed" its members. This sounded like an explanation, but I knew little about such "cults," or about "brainwashing."

I found many sensible academic definitions of "cults," but the more I read the more I got the impression that the term "cult" was used quite loosely, as a label for any group smaller than one's own that was disliked or feared. I also found that there is a widespread notion, apparently accepted by many reporters, that a technology exists, a mysterious and exotic technology, called "brainwashing." If applied to individuals against their will, this technology supposedly can reliably convert people to religious or political ideologies totally foreign to what they had previously believed. To evaluate the favored explanation of the Jonestown tragedy, that the People's Temple was a "cult," and that its members had been "brainwashed," I needed to know more about "cults," and about "brainwashing."

Chapter 1: IntroductionFRAGILE REALITIES 1

But what is a cult? How many other cults are there, and how dangerous are they? Are they really in any meaningful way different from the many groups that most people are a part of? What is "brainwashing?" This idea has been around at least since the Korean war. Presumably, the Red Chinese in the Korean War had brainwashed American pilots to make Communists out of them. It was portrayed in the movies we saw, in the headlines we read, and in documentaries where we saw American flyers stand up and denounce the United States, presumably because they had been brainwashed into becoming Communists. Is brainwashing really what was happening in Jonestown? To what extent does brainwashing really exist, even concerning prisoners of war?

I decided to read and to find out as much as I could about what was known about religious cults, rapid ideological conversion, and brainwashing. What I found surprised me. I thought that there must be a vast literature out there to which I personally had just never been exposed; that upon reading what was available I would gain a much clearer insight into what was going on here; that I might even discover a set of rules which, if adequately and rigorously followed, would lead to the brainwashing of an unwilling participant. I found no such answers. There are volumes of descriptions and case studies of individuals recounting their own experiences of religious or ideological conversion, many of them very dramatic. There are many journalistic accounts, usually brief stories that capture a particularly sensational incident in which an individual or a group has been converted or a radical group has been involved. None of these go very far, however, in explaining why people are converted, or why, having been converted, they show such commitment to the new group, to its causes, or to its leaders. None really get at the issue of brainwashing except to use it to label the mysterious conversions in question.

I decided to attempt to develop a more coherent point of view with respect to this set of phenomenon: issues of conversion, of brainwashing, and of the power of cults and of cult leaders to induce radical changes and powerful commitments in members. This was not an entirely new field of study for me. I had been teaching social psychology courses in group dynamics, at the graduate level at the University of Georgia for six years, and then at Union College, and more recently at the State University of New York, College at Oneonta. I have also taught courses at all of these places on theories of attitudes and attitude change. In addition to teaching, I had also conducted social psychological research over these years. Most of my own research had been, incidentally, on the effects of groups on the attitudes and behaviors of individuals who come under their influence.

Little had been done to integrate the massive body of social psychological research on theories of attitude change with the extensive research on group dynamics. Clearly these things are related. From the earliest theories in social psychology the importance of groups for understanding the formation and change of attitudes has been recognized, but the research paradigms in group dynamics and in theories of attitudes and attitude change have not overlapped very well. Neither of these traditions seemed very helpful in really understanding the dramatic real-world consequences of individual involvement with radical religious groups, religious conversion, and commitment to messianic religious leaders. My goal in recent years has been to develop a framework for understanding these phenomena, in the context of which the existing research and theory on attitudes and groups can be of use.

This book presents a model, which I have developed as a result of pursuing these issues. The major themes that have evolved from this effort can be characterized as those of Conversion and those of Commitment. Why does one come to accept a new ideology that is highly discrepant from one's prior beliefs? And when does one come to feel, think, and act in accordance with that ideology, even when faced with substantial reasons for doing otherwise?

Cults frequently involve rapid or dramatic conversions, both getting into them, and getting out of them. They also seem frequently to engender in their adherents a depth of commitment that is rare in most other groups. Because of this rapidity of conversion, and depth of commitment, cults could be using processes that are different in kind from processes likely to be operating in less dramatic groups. What I have come to believe, however, is that cults are microcosms of more ordinary groups. The processes, made more visible in cults, are the same as the processes by which all of us come to believe one set of things rather than another, and by which we become committed to some of these beliefs more than to others.

The title of the book, Fragile Realities, reflects another remarkable fact about the human condition made more obvious by the study of cults. In the context of cohesive groups, people seem capable of believing in an extraordinary variety of interpretations of reality. More striking is the rejection of one view of reality, and acceptance of a quite different and incompatible one, in the process of conversion. I hope that readers of this book will be motivated to spend more time than they otherwise would reflecting upon the foundations of their own special view of reality, and will become more tolerant of people and groups whose interpretations differ.

"Best Guesses" might also have been an apt title for this book, for that is what all of us accept as reality, and what guides all of our behaviors. A Lilly Tomlin line aptly suggests that reality is no more than "a collective hunch." We will discover that her characterization is not far from some of our best theoretical interpretations of why people believe what they believe. Scientists, as a collection of people, are careful guessers, whose hunches are right more often than others perhaps because they only ask the questions that they are comfortable in answering. In this book we will ask some very difficult questions. Our approach is to use the scientifically based field of social psychology, which over a period of nearly a century has developed voluminous data and well substantiated theory relevant to our understanding of phenomena such as conversion and commitment. The scientific approach is not the only possible method for arriving at answers. It is, however, more valid than other approaches within the narrow realm of its purview. Science will not answer all of our questions to our satisfaction, but it does provide a relatively stable foundation. Whatever else we might believe will hopefully comport with what is well established by objective and scientific methods to be true.

Unfortunately, what this science of careful guessing can tell us is often much less than what we need to know. At best, the scientific approach gives us an anchor in an objective reality. It is the anchor with which, eventually, all ideologies must come to terms. I personally hope that the more diverse ideologies are forced to deal with similar problems, such as the problem of how to cope with an ever expanding, scientifically infused realm of information about objective reality, the more those ideologies will become similar to each other. As their ideologies become more similar, one has reason to hope that they will become increasing less fearful of and less in conflict with each other. Much of this book will be searching for that anchor, that best guess, that which is objectively most plausible, that which is most reasonably inferred from what is objectively known about cults, and conversion, and commitment.