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Control Through Coercive Persuasion

 

            CONTROL THROUGH COERCIVE PERSUASION .
             How does one define control? Webster's dictionary defines control as "to exercise restraining or directing influence over" or to regulate and rule. (Merriam-Webster's p. 252) There are many methods of control used by people and organizations. Propaganda and persuasion are two methods of exerting influence over an individual or group of people. A more systematic and powerful method of persuasion is coercive persuasion. .
             "Coercive persuasion and thought reform are alternate names for programs of social influence capable of producing substantial behavior and attitude change through the use of coercive tactics, persuasion, and/or interpersonal and group-based influence manipulations "(Ofshe, p. 222) .
             A coercive persuasion program is a behavioral change technology applied to cause the "learning" and "adoption" of a set of behaviors or an ideology under certain conditions. Coercive persuasion is not a religious ritual, it is a control device. Through coercive persuasion, a more powerful method of control can be applied. This type of persuasion is typically applied by cults but is not limited to them. (Dolan 2000; Singer 1987).
             There is instinctive human need to belong to a group. (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2001) Most people generally perceive cults as religious organizations. Cults can be defined as "Groups with religious, political, psychological, and other ideologies at their core, which almost universally offer as their central theme a special new psychological awareness handed down by an indisputable and arbitrary authority that uses the technique of thought reform (intense indoctrination or re-socialization, coercive persuasion brainwashing." (Singer, p. 1467) Cults share similarities to everyday social groups like work, school and family. "Cults use the same persuasion tactics often used by other propagandists; cults just us them in a more thorough and complete manner.


Essays Related to Control Through Coercive Persuasion

1. Spousal Abuse

Violence in a relationship may be an attempt to regain control. ... Males satisfy their need for power through having an impact on or control over another person and since their wives are readily available around the house this control, in the form of physical abuse is inflicted upon them as a means of establishing or regaining control (Klein, 1998). ... Aggression and violence can be understood as coercive processes that reflect the aggressor's intentional decision to use force against the spouse, and the decision to punish or retaliate against the spouse for perceived disobedience (Kl...

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2. Leadership Styles and Productivity

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4. Freak Show

In other words, subcultures aren't controlled by the all-powerful, high class; however, corporate control is questionable. ... This triumph, however, is crushed when corporate control takes over. ... Arthur Asa Berger explains, "For them (teenagers), fashion is a coercive force which requires them to keep up with the latest trends in order to stay unnoticed or avoid being different or perceived as square or 'uncool'" (114). Teenagers are the major targets of fashion and advertising industries because teens are the most vulnerable and most susceptible to being influenced by p...

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5. Political Violence

As Moss puts it, politics marks the realm of rational persuasion through speech, legitimate institutions which are organized according to public written rules, and decisions which are reached by bargaining and compromise that can always be revised and reversed (Moss 1996,85). According to him, "violence" is coercive, creates victims and aggressors and has irreversible outcomes. ... That's because as Danziger denotes:" At the heart of most nation-based violence, there exists a struggle for the nationality groups right to control their own political and cultural destiny"....

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6. Nationalism And Its Illness:Political Violence

As Moss puts it, politics marks the realm of rational persuasion through speech, legitimate institutions which are organized according to public written rules, and decisions which are reached by bargaining and compromise that can always be revised and reversed (Moss 1996,85). According to him, "violence" is coercive, creates victims and aggressors and has irreversible outcomes. ... That's because as Danziger denotes:" At the heart of most nation-based violence, there exists a struggle for the nationality groups right to control their own political and cultural destiny"....

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7. Christian Ethics in a Postmodern World

It overcomes the modern worldview through an antiworldview: it deconstructs or eliminates the ingredients necessary for a worldview, such as God, self, purpose, meaning, a real world, and truth as correspondence. ... Revisionary postmodernism tries to overcome the error of the modern worldview by a revision of the modern premises and traditional concepts through a new integration of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and religious intuitions. ... Fredrich Nietzsche critiques that all claims of truth, reason and science are tools for the preservation of life by the will to power which seeks to co...

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8. America's Revolutionary War

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