Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 18, 2001.
Arousal, Capacity, and Intense Indoctrination
Robert S. Baron
This article considers the process of intense indoctrination, specifying procedural conditions, internal states, mechanisms of social influence, and key output behaviors associated with extremely manipulative and coercive programs of attitude and value change. Most descriptions of intense indoctrination point out that emotional arousal and stress are integral features of such programs of systematic persuasion. This article focuses on the hypothesis that this arousal, coupled with other features of the indoctrination process, compromise the attentional capacity of indoctrinees and that this impairment of attentional capacity increases the impact of several social influence mechanisms in such settings. The research evidence relevant to this hypothesis is reviewed.
Changes came over me subtly … in time although I was not aware of it, they had turned me around completely. I had thought I was humoring them by parroting their clichés and buzz words without personally believing in them. Then … a sort of numbed shock set in. To maintain my own sanity and equilibrium while living and functioning day by day in this new environment, I had learned to act by rote … suspending disbelief. (Hearst, 1982, p.185)
Background
In the last 20 years, the public has grown increasingly aware that certain religious and philosophical groups have developed indoctrination procedures that have extraordinary impact. These groups have persuaded young adults to cut off all contact with family; to accept vows of poverty; to devote extremely long hours to prayer, meditation, fundraising and recruitment; and to forsake promising careers and educational opportunities (e.g., Galanter, 1989; Hassan, 1988; Singer, 1995). The most dramatic examples of the power of such indoctrination undoubtedly are cases of group suicide that have punctuated the news from time to time. Thus, one can point to the tragedy at the Jonestown settlement of the People’s Temple, which claimed 914 lives in 1978; the suicidal resistance at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1992; and group suicides among members of the Order of the Solar Temple and Heaven’s Gate sects in the 1990s as indications of the persuasive power of group indoctrination. The dramatic transformation of Patty Hearst after being captured by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in February 1974 represents yet another vivid example of effective indoctrination.
In this article I review classic instances of intense indoctrination, outlining procedural events, intervening states, social influence processes, and output variables. The analysis focuses particularly on the debilitating impact that indoctrination procedures have on attentional capacity and how this, in turn, affects several basic social psychological and cognitive processes integral to persuasion and behavior change. This approach complements and updates early conceptualizations of intense indoctrination and provides the framework for a systematic and in-depth discussion of research findings in the areas of attitude change, group process, stereotyping, and human cognition. Moreover, in this discussion I expand on earlier treatments of this process (e.g., Hassan, 1988; Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992; Singer, 1995) by carefully examining the extent to which the experimental evidence supports the view that attentional depletion and other related internal states (e.g., emotion) exacerbate specific persuasive processes.
Early Analyses of Intense Indoctrination
Almost all early descriptions of intense indoctrination acknowledged that such indoctrination involves an initial period of psychological and physical stress (e.g., Lifton, 1961; Sargant, 1957; Schein, Schneier, & Barker, 1961). However, these explanations varied regarding why this stress alters values, behaviors, and senses of self. Some writers simply assumed that a stress-induced state of hypnotic-like confusion was responsible for the resulting changes, whereas other writers took a psychoanalytic perspective, arguing that stress and exhaustion weaken ego strength and elevate dependency needs and guilt, thereby leading the indoctrinee to identify with the indoctrinating agent (e.g., Moloney, 1955). Other writers assumed that conditioning principles were responsible for changes wrought by indoctrination. Sargant (1957), for example, referring to Pavlov’s (1927) canine stress research, argued that the stress of indoctrination led to a state of ultraparadoxical inhibition in which a given evaluative response was replaced with its opposite reaction. In Pavlov’s research, this form of inhibition was inferred when well-conditioned dogs salivated “inappropriately” to negative discriminatory stimuli following extreme stress. Sargant suggested that an analogous process explained the dramatic changes in beliefs and attitudes observed following stressful indoctrination.
Lifton (1961) focused on changes in sense of self in his classic discussion of Chinese communist intense indoctrination techniques. Lifton emphasized how the various highly coercive procedures used by the Chinese effected changes in identity and self-definition. Thus, Lifton conceptualized indoctrination as a process that manipulated guilt, shame, and anxiety to produce a “death” of the original self and a “rebirth” of a reeducated self. Lifton focused on the act of confession as a key procedural element of indoctrination, viewing it as a direct assault on the adequacy of the self-concept and a major source of anxiety and guilt (see also Ofshe & Singer, 1986). Although these models are interesting historically, a model outlined by Schein et al. (1961) is more relevant to the analysis I present below. Whereas early models tended to emphasize a specific mechanism of change, Schein et al. (1961) suggested that an eclectic variety of mediating mechanisms produced changes in beliefs, values, and self-conceptions. In addition, Schein et al. (1961) explicitly acknowledged that although indoctrination altered self-conception, this change, in turn, depended on initial changes in beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors (e.g., p.195). In this respect, this account took on a decidedly social psychological perspective. Accordingly, Schein et al.’s (1961) model was unique among early approaches in referring to mechanisms such as cognitive dissonance, conformity, interpersonal communication, and cognitive and semantic organization.
Schein et al. (1961) argued that the indoctrination process involved three stages: unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. Unfreezing was envisioned as a weakening of the stable equilibria that supported the individual’s beliefs and attitudes, especially those concerning the self and influencing agents. Emotional stressors such as fear, guilt, social ostracism, and inner conflict as well as physical stressors such as inadequate diet, sleep deprivation, and the use of physical restraints (handcuffs) were thought to contribute to unfreezing. Changing involved altering the cognitive structure of the indoctrinee. This stage referred to the “mental operations” involved in changing attitudes, beliefs, and semantic systems as well as self-conception. Controlled information, cognitive dissonance, social influence from peers and authority figures, and social identification processes were deemed crucial here, leading to a willingness to uncritically consider and understand the doctrine and interpretations proffered by the group. Finally, refreezing involved stabilizing the changes wrought by the indoctrination process. Schein et al. (1961) believed that this involved integrating new beliefs and values into the overall personality. They argued that interpersonal confirmation and social reinforcement by others played a crucial role in this process. Schein et al.’s (1961) emphasis on social confirmation strongly echoed Sargant’s (1957) thoughts regarding the factors affecting persistence of indoctrination-produced changes, a process Sargant referred to as consolidation.
Schein et al.’s (1961) framework serves as a historical precursor to the analysis presented below in several respects. Schein et al.’s (1961) model considered a variety of conceptual mechanisms as agents of change rather than focusing on a single process. It emphasized that changes in belief, attitude, values, and behavior are key outcomes of indoctrination that are necessary to produce the changes in self-conception that characterize successful instances of thought reform. The model viewed indoctrination as a sequential process moving through several stages and, finally, examined the relevant experimental evidence in social and cognitive psychology. In the analysis presented in this article, I extend this approach by paying particular attention to interactive dynamics between emotional states, attentional capacity, and social psychological phenomena.
Process of Indoctrination
This analysis began with extensive library research on classic instances of intense indoctrination introduced by the communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Hinkle & Wolff, 1956; Lifton, 1961; Sargant, 1957; Schein et al., 1961). The analysis was also influenced by an informal series of conversations with approximately 40 former members of cult organizations conducted between 1979 and 1990[1] as well as by written reports by psychologists and others specializing in the treatment of ex-cult members (e.g., Galanter, 1989; Hassan, 1988; Singer, 1979). Many components of the framework outlined here have been tested in a series of laboratory experiments focusing on both group persuasion and the impact of stress on persuasion and social perception. In this article, I review that research as well as other relevant findings.
As several others have noted (e.g., Lifton, 1961; Schein et al., 1961), the indoctrination process can be envisioned as a series of stages. Although such distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, in this analysis I characterize the indoctrination process as having four stages as opposed to the three stages specified by Schein et al. (1961). These are labeled as the softening-up stage, compliance stage, internalization stage, and consolidation stage. These stages are discussed in more detail in the next section. Following that, the analysis lists procedural events commonly found in classic cases of intense indoctrination, various emotional and cognitive intervening states likely to be caused by these procedures, and a number of social psychological processes likely to affect attitudes and values given these procedures and reactions. The various procedural events and process features specified here are largely a synthesis of those outlined in prior accounts (e.g., Lifton, 1961; Schein et al., 1961). However, I expand on prior work by considering the possibility that the emotional and cognitive states alluded to previously interact with (i.e., exacerbate) the social psychological processes thought to underlie the belief and attitude changes produced by intense indoctrination. Finally, I specify a number of output behaviors that are typical of successful indoctrination. These output behaviors have the following features: (a) they reflect a radical departure from previous values, attitudes, and behaviors; (b) they seem to be emitted freely at the moment (i.e., they are not the result of any current physical or material threat); and (c) they involve substantial costs for the indoctrinee. This cost can involve such things as negative publicity, violation of prior commitment, time, money, lost opportunity, or injury to self or loved ones.
Stages of Intense Indoctrination
A variety of tactics are used to recruit individuals to totalist groups. For cases in which new recruits are volunteers (e.g., most cases of cult recruitment), these tactics can include such things as repeated personal contact, group meals, lectures, and weekend retreats (Hassan, 1988). During these initial contacts, the recruits may be showered with attention and praise and are likely to be carefully “squired” by enthusiastic group members. After these initial contacts, strong efforts are made to physically separate the recruits from their normal environment. This is often accomplished by moving recruits to a secluded setting. In cases involving coercion, of course, abduction and arrest serve to locate the indoctrinee in an indoctrinating context. Following Hassan’s suggestion, I reserve the term coercive persuasion for such forceful indoctrination contexts. The major distinguishing feature of such coercive settings is that initial stress levels tend to be higher and more salient to indoctrinees given the greater threats to their person and freedom. A surprising number of other features, however, are common to both voluntary and coercive forms of intense indoctrination, such as physical and social separation, changes in diet, sleep deprivation, peer pressure, and emotional manipulations. Once recruits are separated from their normal social context, the indoctrination process unfolds.
Stage 1. In the softening-up stage, the indoctrinee is typically isolated from friends and family. Efforts are made to keep the indoctrinee confused, excited, tired, disoriented, and, sometimes, abused and frightened. This period can be as brief as a few hours, although it usually is longer. Stress levels are most pronounced in the more coercive instances of intense indoctrination. Patty Hearst (1982), as an example, was held handcuffed in a dark closet for more than four weeks; she was graphically and repeatedly threatened with death and exposed to various other forms of severe psychological and physical abuse during this period of confinement.
Ms. Heart’s experience corresponds in a disturbing way to isolation procedures used originally by Stalin’s NKVD in some of the first cases of systematic indoctrination ever reported. According to an excellent description by Hinkle and Wolff (1956), the Soviet secret police used particularly intense pressure to “break” new prisoners. Soviet prisoners served months in solitary confinement, during which they were not allowed contact with anyone except the interrogator. Isolation was so complete that when prisoners passed each other while being escorted through the halls, they had to turn their heads from each other and look at the corridor wall. Lights were lit continually, prisoners were deprived of sleep, cells had no windows, and interrogation, if it occurred at all at this point, took place at irregular intervals. All of this made it difficult for the prisoners to maintain time orientation. If prisoners asked what they were charged with, they either were ignored or were told that the State made no mistakes, knew their crimes, and expected the prisoners to show their sincerity by confessing to what the State already knew. In short, prisoners were given the oftentimes impossible chore of figuring out why they were being “rehabilitated.” In addition, prisoners’ early attempts at confessing and giving information were generally rejected as inadequate or insincere. As a variation on this technique, Chinese communist procedures of the 1940s and 1950s typically involved abusive social pressure from more “advanced” prisoners (coupled with the use of manacles) in lieu of solitary confinement as a key means of elevating stress.
These police procedures represent an extreme instance of softening up an indoctrinee. More subtle procedures, however, can also be effective at generating the stress necessary to prepare individuals for effective indoctrination. For example, Singer (1995), describing cult indoctrination, referred to changes in diet, appearance, sleep, arousal, and social context as effective stressors (see also Galanter, 1989). The general point is that some period of initial stress apparently increases the effectiveness of an intense assault on an individual’s attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Stage 2. In the compliance stage, the recruit tentatively “tries out” some of the behaviors requested by the group, more or less going through the motions or paying lip service to many of the demands made by the group. Often, the recruit views this as a period of exploration to see what the group is like or what such compliant behavior nets him or her. In other cases, compliance occurs in response to social pressure. Although curiosity and politeness account for some acts of compliance, other instances are induced by well-known compliance techniques, such as reciprocal concessions procedures, appeals to authority, and group pressure (Cialdini, 1993). Finally, in coercive settings, individuals often comply in an attempt to reduce threatening or aversive aspects of the situation.
Stage 3. In the internalization stage, the recruit starts to consider aspects of the group belief system. This can be triggered by various mechanisms including curiosity, persistent social pressure, and the need to justify prior compliance. This stage, analogous to Schein et al.’s (1961) changing stage, can be completed within a week in some cases. In this stage, standard theories of social influence and persuasion (e.g., Cialdini, 1993; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) became applicable in that the individual reevaluates old beliefs and considers new ones.
Stage 4. In the consolidation stage, the recruit solidifies his or her newly acquired allegiance to the group. This may entail making various costly behavioral commitments that are hard to undo (e.g., donating one’s personal possessions to the group or recruiting new members), isolating oneself from nongroup members, or selective exposure to information. This final stage of indoctrination is marked by the recruit’s total acceptance of group doctrine and policy with a minimum of close examination. In this stage, the primary reaction of the recruit to negative information about the group is denial and rationalization. Thus, events and information are selectively interpreted and attended to. As this implies, cognitive dissonance mechanisms appear to be highly relevant in this stage. Individuals at this stage are dominated by what Chaiken, Liberman, and Eagly (1989) referred to as defense motivation, when they process attitude-relevant information (i.e., the desire to hold or defend a specific attitudinal position). For this reason, the indoctrinee who reaches the consolidation stage will be highly resistant to persuasion from those outside the group.
Comments. The four stages outlined here obviously draw heavily from prior analyses. For example, Sargant (1957) discussed the consolidation notion as early as 1957. Similarly, Schein et al.’s (1961) three stages of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing are very similar to the four-stage framework. The major difference between the two is that Schein et al.’s (1961) unfreezing stage is subdivided by the four-stage framework into the softening-up and compliance stages to more explicitly reflect the activities and processes present in the early phases of indoctrination. An important caveat in this discussion of stages is that they are intended to serve as guidelines rather than inflexible and mutually exclusive partitions. Stages will vary in duration from case to case, and each prior stage is thought to blend into the next. Moreover, some rare individuals remain with their groups while never making the transition into the consolidation stage or, alternatively, they may slip in and out of this stage. This may lead such individuals to experience conflict and doubt akin to “crises of faith” seen in various religions.
Procedural Features of Intense Indoctrination
Standard reference works regarding indoctrination (e.g., Schein et al., 1961; Singer, 1995) indicate that a series of procedural features are commonly observed. One subset of these procedures appears to contribute directly to the softening-up stage described previously. These include social disruption (i.e., separation from friends and family), physical stress (especially sleep loss and altered diet), fear or guilt manipulations, regimented daily activity schedules, alteration in appearance (clothing, posture, hairstyle), and carefully orchestrated social pressure. Additional procedural features include public self-criticism or confession, repetitive mental activity (e.g., meditation, memorizing doctrine), the presence of strong authority figures, a “messianic” group purpose (from which group members can derive a sense of importance), stereotypical depiction of nonmembers as evil or misguided, escalation of commitment in which the recruit is asked to engage in increasingly costly behavior over time, and censorship of information. Although I have identified certain procedures as contributing to the softening-up stage, this is not meant to imply that they only have effects at this stage. As shown subsequently, it seems likely that certain of these procedural events (e.g., physical stress) may contribute to reactions at various stages.
Indoctrination and Internal States
The procedures outlined in the previous paragraph are commonly thought to produce a variety of strong internal reactions during intense indoctrination attempts (e.g., Hassan, 1988; Lifton, 1961; Singer, 1995). These states include guilt, fear (or anxiety), confusion, dependency, depleted attentional capacity (attributable to sleep loss, malnutrition, emotionality, and high rates of activity), disassociative states provoked by chanting or meditation, and low self-esteem attributable to imposed self-criticism and requirements to learn the often inscrutable doctrine of the group.
Mechanisms of Internalization
The reactions of indoctrinees during the softening-up and compliance stages of indoctrination do not require elaborate commentary. Individuals react to stress, curiosity, or social pressure in fairly predictable ways. Similarly, a number of well-known persuasion processes can account for attitude and value change observed in the internalization stage. Thus, various recent accounts of intense indoctrination identify mechanisms such as conformity processes, desires for group acceptance, heuristic message processing, group polarization, group think, stereotyping (of outgroup members), foot-in-the-door processes, and cognitive dissonance mechanisms as important mediators of attitude and value change in these manipulative settings (e.g., Pratkanis & Aronson, 1992; Singer, 1995). Although a number of writers allude to such social psychological processes in their discussion of intense indoctrination, a number of other issues remain intriguing or controversial. One set of issues concerns the processes involved in the attitude consolidation phase. A second set of issues concerns the likelihood that standard social influence processes have greater impact on recruits because of the internal states typically generated during intense indoctrination. This “enhanced impact” is a major focus of the current treatment. A key assumption here is that the internal states produced by intense indoctrination impair attentional capacity, thereby dramatically enhancing the effectiveness of various social psychological processes. It is my contention that this interactive process is a major reason why intense indoctrination can be viewed as a qualitatively unique form of social influence. By explicitly considering how such interactive dynamics affect compliance, internalization, and consolidation, this analysis complements and extends prior treatments of intense indoctrination. These various issues are covered in the following sections.
Mechanisms of Consolidation
During the consolidation stage, the recruit comes to uncritically accept the various aspects of group policy and doctrine. In this stage, attitudes are held with such tenacity that contradictory evidence is generally explained away. Cognitive dissonance theory provides one compelling explanation for such reactions. According to this view, the disciple’s need to justify the costly and often irrevocable behavioral commitments that escalate over the course of intensive indoctrination leads to the development of extreme and resistant attitudes. For example, several classic case studies of doomsday groups (Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter, 1956; Hardyck & Braden, 1962) provide cogent analyses of how cognitive dissonance mechanisms can contribute to group loyalty even in the face of extremely dramatic disconfirmations of group doctrine and prophesy. A second (cognitive miser) hypothesis I suggest regarding the development of attitude consolidation is that eventually, group members find it quite effortful to continually agonize over whether the group’s ideology is correct or justified. Both the individual’s limited attentional capacity (Kahneman, 1973) and attentional fatigue (Cohen, 1978) should discourage the individual from prolonged consideration of group doctrine. Consider the experience of Patricia Hearst (1982):
Once I came to accept in my own mind the stark reality of my new life—that I was now a part of the SLA…the racking turmoil within me subsided. My everyday life became somewhat easier. All I had to do was to go along with them and that became easier day by day. (p.164)
In addition to this cognitive miser view and the dissonance interpretation of attitude consolidation, I add Sargant’s (1957) argument that social confirmation contributes to the intense attitude persistence created by indoctrination (see also Schein et al., 1961). Sargant argued that confirmation of one’s views by others increased the probability that the new attitudes would become well integrated into one’s sense of self and the other attitudes and values in one’s cognitive system. As a result, these attitudes were expected to be costly to change. A number of well-established research findings support these original speculations. First, research on various forms of attitude involvement indicates that ego-involving attitudes are indeed relatively resistant to change (Johnson & Eagly, 1989). The research on social identification makes a related point. This research assumes that group membership often will be a key element in self-definition and self-esteem (e.g., Mackie & Cooper, 1984; Wood, Pool, Leck & Purvis, 1996). As predicted, this research indicates that attitudes linked to valued groups are resistant to attack especially from outgroup members (David & Turner, 1996). In addition, Pool, Wood, and Leck (1998) reported that individuals experience lowered self-esteem when they learn that their opinions are contradicted by valued in-group members. This, of course, supports the view that there are self-related reasons for individuals to adhere to (attitudinal) group norms in cases in which they strongly identify with their groups.
Also in accord with Sargant’s (1957) social confirmation view, the group interaction literature indicates that discussion between like-minded individuals (one form of social confirmation) generally provokes polarization of attitude (Isenberg, 1986) as well as heightened confidence (Janis, 1972; Stasser, Taylor, & Hanna, 1989). Indeed, full discussion may not even be necessary to provoke such changes. Baron, Hoppe, Linneweh, and Rogers (1996) recently reported a series of studies indicating that when individuals learned only that others agreed with their judgments and opinions (without knowing why), they increased the extremity of these responses and felt greater confidence regarding these more extreme views (see also Luus & Wells, 1994).
Interactive Processes in Indoctrination
In short, a variety of mechanisms are capable of producing the attitude consolidation outlined in this model. A second set of interesting issues concerns the extent to which the internal states described here interact with these processes and those listed as causes of compliance and attitude internalization. This is discussed in the following sections.
Interactive Dynamics and Compliance
Although there are not abundant data addressing how compliance is affected by internal states such as fear, self-esteem, and attentional capacity, there are reasons to expect strong relations. For example, the feelings of guilt and low self-esteem should heighten the effectiveness of requests to publicly criticize (and confess) one’s past actions that so often characterize intense indoctrination. In the same vein, attentional depletion should leave one more susceptible to the compliance manipulations generally used to elicit behavioral commitment. Cialdini (1993) outlined a number of creative strategies for resisting compliance procedures. These strategies all entail mindful and sophisticated awareness of subtle social pressures integral to such techniques. Such awareness is likely to be impaired when attentional capacity is limited. Dolinski and Nawrat (1998) recently reported that individuals were far more likely to comply with various requests (for money, experimental participation, or charity work) soon after a brief period of fear. In accord with this argument, they attributed this “fear, then relief” compliance procedure to the depletion of attentional capacity that is thought by many to occur soon after a person experiences strong emotion (e.g., Cohen, 1978).
Interactive Dynamics During Internalization
Arousal, capacity, and superficial message processing. The change in private beliefs that occurs during the internalization stage is hypothesized to be affected by the amount of attentional capacity available to individuals during intense indoctrination. Persuasion researchers agree that one way of resisting a flawed persuasive attempt is to carefully evaluate the merits of the message. In cases of indoctrination, individuals are often cajoled into violating their values, engaging in costly behaviors, or committing themselves to irrevocable decisions in service of fanciful, paranoid and unverifiable doctrines. For example, the members of the SLA committed a variety of very public criminal actions, convinced that they were at the brink of triggering and leading a mass “people’s revolution” across the United States. One would think that careful processing of such teachings would draw attention to faulty logic, incomplete verification, undiscussed consequences, or erroneous information. However, careful, systematic processing requires a good deal of effort and concentration (Chaiken, 1987; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). People who are debilitated because of malnourishment, sleep deprivation, or overwork should be less capable of carefully processing message characteristics. This, in turn, should heighten the impact of peripheral cues such as audience response, speaker confidence, or emotional manipulations. In short, the fact that a variety of indoctrination procedures deplete attentional capacity may explain why individuals in such settings so often appear to accept even fanciful aspects of group doctrine with such little critical objection.[2]
A variety of findings indicate that this attentional capacity prediction has validity. It is congruent with research that documents that distraction and time pressure produce less careful message processing (e.g., Baron, Baron, & Miller, 1973; Kruglanski, 1989). The strong arousal generated during intense indoctrination represents another factor that may increase the likelihood of heuristic processing. A number of writers have reviewed evidence showing that emotional arousal depletes attentional capacity (e.g., Eysenck, 1977). Given that careful message processing is presumed to occur only when one has the necessary capacity and motivation, Baron (1986) argued that if arousal lowers such capacity, it should decrease the likelihood of elaborate message processing (see Bodenhausen, Sheppard, & Kramer, 1994, for a related view).
This argument, in fact, echoes early theorizing by Sargant (1957), who argued on the basis of anthropological and historical observations, that emotional excitement somehow disrupted critical thinking and caused the ultraparadoxical reversal of previously conditioned preferences referred to earlier. More interesting, Sargant suspected these effects were caused by some disturbance of cerebral function. He presciently suggested that a form of cortical reciprocal inhibition (pp. 43, 55) may be involved, a position espoused some 16 years later by Walley and Weiden (1973).
Until recently there was not a great deal of data relevant to the idea that strong emotion would heighten superficial message processing, but in the last few years a number of studies have reported support for this view. Sanbonmatsu and Kardes (1988) reported that a step exercise (arousal) manipulation increased responsiveness to peripheral cues while decreasing audience responsiveness to message quality differences. This pattern, of course, is typically associated with superficial (i.e., peripheral) processing of message content. Although Sanbonmatsu and Kardes did not use an emotion manipulation, Gleicher and Petty (1992) varied moderate fear by warning students about either a new illness on campus or campus crime. They found that when peripheral cues were easily available to participants, these fear manipulations decreased the audience’s sensitivity to message quality differences, thereby again showing evidence of superficial message processing. Baron, Inman, Kao, and Logan (1992) reported a similar finding using a more naturalistic emotional manipulation.
In laboratory tests, it is hard to provoke strong levels of fear given that participants are free to terminate their participation and, moreover, are generally under the (correct) impression that strong stressors are unlikely to be used in modern psychological research. To develop a nonlaboratory alternative, Baron, Inman, et al. (1992) manipulated emotional arousal in a student dental clinic. In this setting, patients regularly received a complete description of their upcoming dental treatment. In this study, some dental patients were randomly assigned to receive this graphic description just minutes before hearing a message. These “high-fear” patients were more persuaded by a purposely flawed message (accompanied by an enthusiastic audience response) than were patients who did not receive this stressful description until after reacting to the message. Thus, fear led to less careful message processing in this study.
Moreover, fear is not the only emotion to provoke “low-effort” message processing. Bodenhausen et al. (1994) found that an anger manipulation heightened an audience’s responsiveness to peripheral message cues. In addition, this effect did not occur when a nonarousing emotion (sadness) was manipulated. In short, a number of studies indicate that arousing emotions tend to decrease the effort people employ when processing persuasive content. Given the strong emotional arousal frequently present during the typical instance of intense indoctrination, these results imply that indoctrinees are not likely to engage in very careful processing of the persuasive manipulations they are exposed to. Moreover, any resulting attitude change may be enhanced if the message or doctrine suggests a means to control the threat or danger used to trigger the emotion. This is particularly true in cases in which the persuasive messages used by the indoctrinating group suggest simple (i.e., attainable) avenues of threat reduction. As Rogers (1975) pointed out, under these conditions fear-based persuasive appeals are particularly effective at inducing attitude change.[3] Such appeals are indeed common in charismatic groups in which adherence to doctrine and loyalty to the group are proffered as means of avoiding the various threats and dangers made salient (e.g., Sargant, 1957; Singer, 1995).
One objection to this discussion of overload and superficial message processing is that, in theory, attitudes formed on the basis of superficial processing are less stable and less resistant to counterpropaganda than are attitudes formed or changed through more effortful processing (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986), Although there is emerging laboratory support for these predictions (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), these laboratory studies do not reproduce the situation created by intense indoctrination in which the target of persuasion remains in a controlled social setting after message exposure, surrounded by others who confirm and reinforce the beliefs in question and in which social pressure is used to elicit a series of behaviors congruent with the new beliefs. Moreover, in many indoctrination situations, the target of persuasion remains socially dependent, sleep deprived, or otherwise debilitated well into his or her indoctrination experience, thereby making a careful reevaluation of doctrines and beliefs extremely difficult. Under these circumstances, it is expected that attitudes and beliefs changed initially as a result of heuristic message processing will become solidified, more extreme over time, integrated into other aspects of self and, as a result, relatively impervious to change (see Maass & Clark, 1984, for very similar reasoning).
Arousal, capacity, and conformity. Almost all accounts of intense indoctrination acknowledge that conformity pressure is carefully applied in the typical case of intense indoctrination (e.g., Galanter, 1989; Lifton, 1961, Singer, 1995). More important, however, the procedures and states previously discussed are known to potentiate classic social influence effects. Social influence effects are known to be more powerful in times of confusion, ambiguity, and low personal confidence (e.g., Deutsch & Gerard, 1955; cf. Baron, Kerr, & Miller, 1992). The complex nature of group doctrine coupled with the debilitating procedures used in the early stages of indoctrination should produce just such confusion and low confidence. Conformity effects also are strengthened greatly if the individual is faced with a unanimous group consensus (Wilder & Allen, 1977). Indoctrinating groups go to some lengths to provide at least the illusion of such consensus by carefully orchestrating the social surroundings of each recruit and removing or isolating those recruits who express doubts. Moreover, this consensus is usually expressed with confidence and enthusiasm. Although few studies have examined the impact of confederate confidence in majority influence studies, Baron, Vandello, and Brunsman (1996) reported that high (manipulated) confederate confidence increased both the rate of conformity as well as the individuals’ confidence in their (incorrect) conforming views. These data complement Nemeth and Wachtler’s (1974) report that a manipulation of nonverbal confederate confidence increased social influence in a minority influence paradigm.
The fact that conformity effects are enhanced by manipulations such as judgment difficulty and (low) individual confidence (e.g., Deutsch & Gerard, 1955) is congruent with this focus on attentional capacity as a key process leading to successful indoctrination. Various theorists have suggested that individuals will be more likely to rely on social information when their individual capacity is challenged or overwhelmed by a judgmental task (e.g., Festinger, 1954). One extension of this logic is that a unified group consensus serves as a heuristic cue (i.e., “all those people can’t be wrong”) that is more likely to be relied on by individuals when their capacity is inadequate (or they perceive it to be inadequate) for meeting the demands of a judgmental task (Chaiken & Maheswaran, 1994, Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). As noted, procedural features of intense indoctrination create just such conditions.
In addition to the results discussed in the preceding paragraph, some data indicate that conformity effects are more pronounced when fear levels are high. Darley (1966) reported that conformity was increased when individuals were threatened with the prospect of electric shock. Other forms of stress and arousal appear to have similar effects. Kruglanski and Webster (1991) examined groups of Israeli scouts who were attempting to agree on a camp location. Kruglanski and Webster found greater rejection of (confederate) deviates when time pressure or aversive noise was present. Similarly, numerous studies testing terror management theory indicate that individuals exhibit less tolerance for nonnormative behavior from others following a manipulation increasing the salience of their own death (e.g., Florian & Mikulincer, 1997). Thus, a variety of manipulations that should impair attentional capacity (i.e., emotion, time pressure, task ambiguity) enhance the effects of conformity pressure. These results have obvious implications for social influence applied in the stressful milieu of intense indoctrination.
Another feature of intense indoctrination is that the decisions and judgments in question often are ones of substantial cost and importance for indoctrinees. On initial reflection, one may argue that such importance may weaken social influence effects. If the decision is crucial, will individuals feel enough involvement to buck group pressure and make up their minds for themselves? The answer to this question appears to be “no” in cases of even moderate ambiguity. Baron, Vandello, & Brunsman (1996) varied decision importance through a combination of financial inducements and ego involvement (all increasing the importance of judgment accuracy). They found that for a moderately difficult judgment task (i.e., having a 28% error rate), conforming to the inaccurate confederate norm increased as task importance increased (see Figure 1). Moreover, as noted previously, this conformity was accompanied by increases in confidence in those conditions in which the confederates acted highly confident in their opinions. In short, Baron, Vandello, et al.’s (1996) data suggested that the conditions generally found during intense indoctrination (i.e., ambiguous and important judgments made in the presence of unanimous and highly confident peers) can produce particularly high rates of confident conformity.
Of course, group factors on occasion can undermine indoctrination procedures (Schein, Hill, Williams, & Lubin, 1957; Schein et al., 1961). Despite common belief, the indoctrination of several thousand U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War was generally unsuccessful at producing lasting, internalized attitude change, with only a handful (n = 21) of these individuals actually refusing repatriation (Myers, 1998). Most accounts (e.g., Schein et al., 1957) attribute the resistance of the American prisoners of war in Korea to mutual group support the troops managed to provide each other during indoctrination (e.g., crossing fingers during public confession). Such support, however, often can be eliminated simply by keeping recruits separate from each other in the early stages of indoctrination