[Paleopsych] Global Gulag: Steven Hassan: Political Propaganda is Cult Brainwashing

[Todd I. Stark]

I'll say that Hassan has always seemed to me to be pretty consistent 
with the mainstream theoretical stance in social psychology, although 
his focus on destructive groups and on dealing with their victims gives 
  his work a slant of its own.  There is also a thread in psychology 
that is very critical of the "brainwashing" model because it takes the 
concept of influence so far with so few distinctions.  Making the 
transition from 'suggestion' to constructing a new ego sense is a big 
leap both in theory and in practice, and the Lewin-Lifton-Singer-Hassan 
style models of influence take that leap easily because of their 
emphasis on clinical observation rather than experimental work.  Most of 
the suggestion research is experimental.  The clinical traditions around 
suggestion and influence have always been controversial in some regards. 
  The mainstream tradition of hypnosis and suggestibility research is 
not nearly as well known as the clinical horror stories.   Hassan's work 
is built partly on both.

Todd

Premise Checker wrote on 9/24/2005, 9:55 PM:

 > Steven Hassan: Political Propaganda is Cult Brainwashing
 > [Thanks to Laird for this. There are hundreds of theories about
 > persuasion.
 > Apparently this is just one man's theory. I don't know how his
 > theories compare
 > with other theories, how compatible they are with each other, and so on.]
 >
 > A successful induction by a destructive cult displaces a person's former
 > identity and replaces it with a new one. That new identity may not be
 > one that
 > the person would have freely chosen under her own volition.
 >
 > -Steven  Hassan