Returning to the Stanford Prison Experiment

Ben Blum, in his article The Lifespan of a Lie, sets out to put to rest the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). He suggests that the reason we have collectively embraced the lesson of the SPE—that environments strongly affect people's moral decisions—is because it lets us off the hook for bad decisions. In other words, we cannot be held accountable for immoral behavior if it was our environment, not ourselves, that caused us to act as we did.

Seemingly at variance with his viewpoint, Mr. Blum goes on to write about an attempted replication of the SPE. Emphasis added by me:

"According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify — for instance, scientific progress or prison reform. We have been taught that guards abused prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment because of the power of their roles, but Haslam and Reicher argue that their behavior arose instead from their identification with the experimenters, which Jaffe and Zimbardo encouraged at every turn. Eshleman, who described himself on an intake questionnaire as a “scientist at heart,” may have identified more powerfully than anyone, but Jaffe himself put it well in his self-evaluation: “I am startled by the ease with which I could turn off my sensitivity and concern for others for ‘a good cause.’”"

An important lesson that we can draw from the Stanford Prison Study, Haslam and Reicher's replication, Solomon Asch's experiments on the bandwagon effect, and other studies on social norming, is that people generally conform to what they think they are expected to do, and much more so when that expectation comes from an authority figure. The COG employed the highest and most absolute authority of all, God. Following the words of our "prophet," David Berg, created an upside-down, morally abhorrent, alternative reality within COG Homes and was the root of abuse and exploitation within the cult.

See also, The Power of Ideology.

More on Anonymity

The anonymity in the group caused by the taking of new names upon joining, isolation from society at large, social norming, and the deindividualization of groupthink was a powerful force.

I wrote before that perhaps this name changing was akin to Plato’s “Ring of Gyges.” To put this in more contemporary and perhaps more relevant terms, think of Tolkien’s “The One Ring.” Both were stories of magic rings that granted invisibility to the wearer. In Plato's Republic, he uses the story of the ring to consider whether a person would be moral if he did not have to fear being caught. In Tolkien's story, the ring also brought with its invisibility the propensity towards evil. Did the anonymity of name changing in The Family affect people’s psyches and give them further license to engage in behavior contrary to conventional morality?

Aside from this more obvious psychological process of providing a cover for amoral activity, I wonder if anonymity was a basic factor in keeping the cult together. We had new personas in the cult. We could forget who we were before joining, forget our family and friends, and forget conventional mores.

Reflecting on my teen years as a Catacomb member of the COG while still living with my parents, I see how I had had two personas—the happy cult Hepsi and the past Mary with her biological family, her friends, and problems. When my best friend called me after having been away for months, I told her about my infatuation with the Children of God. She reacted as I probably would have, had our situations been reversed. She blurted with disdain, "What? You're a Jesus Freak?!" I felt so embarrassed. But not embarrassed enough to change my mind.

I had found succour in the cult. That loving, welcoming "Family" that gave purpose to my life. I had to separate my outside self, the one my friend had known, from my cult self. Then when that friend stopped by my house to visit, I was too ashamed to answer the door. Too bad I wasn't self-aware enough to realize how my behavior betrayed my real feelings toward the COG. Although that embarrassment continued lurking in the shadows of my subconscious all my years in the cult, I repressed those "sinful doubts" and gave my all to The Children of God. And that is the real shame.

The Power of Ideology

Researchers occasionally contact me for information in their efforts to poke and prod at the bubble of the Children of God/The Family International cult to try to see what held it together and what it was like on the inside.

The other day I was asked, “Did you get paid for your work?”

What a shocking question. Back in my cult days, I certainly didn’t think of my life from the perspective of earning a living. To think of it that way now drops me into the void of loss and regret. I probably could have earned a respectable living and set aside funds for both my retirement and my children's education had I not given thirty years of the prime of my life to the Children of God.

But alas, it was not to be.

My cult days were filled with service. In the early years, I would get out of my bed—or off of my sheet on the floor—put on a smile, and greet my fellow commune members, then sit down to a breakfast of barely yellow eggs, rice, and water. After devotions, which consisted of reading usually the newest Mo Letter from our founder, David Berg, we got ready to spend the day proselytizing.

From morning till night, we would knock on doors, sell cult-produced publications or products, then come home for dinner. After dishes there was more reading, perhaps some united singing, childcare, and bed. The next day, it all began again.

As the years passed, my work changed to caring for other people's children. But still, the ideology was the same. As part of the “body of Christ,” I was facilitating our missionary cause by schooling and looking after children, which was one of the many ministries that in sum furthered The Family's universal goal of bringing God's Kingdom on earth.

How could I have cheerfully gotten up each morning and faced not an iota of personal freedom? To diligently work, even to the point of nervous breakdown, for no money whatsoever? It was the adhesive of the Mo Letters that held the group together and kept us going.

Each day, we spent hours studying Family publications or our Bibles, which we read through the lens of the Mo Letters and Berg's interpretation. Our conviction drove us. Our united cause drove us. We were part of a worldwide group with an exclusive calling, God's Endtime army. We were to be willing to do anything for Jesus, sleep with strangers to “show them God's love,” beg on the streets, care for other people's children 24/7, whatever it took, to promote the cause.

The intensity and strength of a clear belief system should never be underestimated. It can lead to people becoming “new creatures,” completely different from their former selves, with a new set of values, priorities, and goals. Ideology can overcome familial ties, motherly protective instincts, and it can create slaves out of otherwise rational people.

But what is the appeal? What draws people to cults and other controlling groups? The lure of a strong code of belief and a common cause worthy of fighting for, giving a noble purpose and direction to one's life. What keeps them? Camaraderie and a united goal, a sense of purpose, belonging and being part of something of epic proportions. On top of this, there is the myriad of human tendencies: the false valuation of life in the group, the confirmation bias, social norming, loss aversion, sunk cost, and maybe even inertia. One's sense of what is normal becomes completely skewed.

What of conflicting evidence? What if a true believer is shown proof that his faith is unfounded? It is the nature of humanity when confronted with evidence that contradicts our firmly held beliefs to cling defensively to those beliefs. Faith becomes enmeshed with our personal image. Our beliefs become a part of us and who we are. It would be like tearing out a part of ourselves to give them up.

The only way to “rescue” someone from a firmly held belief is to separate them from the constant input and influence of dogma. To dilute the poison of propaganda by distance and by providing a wide variety of information, some of which will contradict and show other sides to what they have been holding dear. But this must be handled gently, with compassion and understanding, because this is a matter of the will and the psyche, of the very essence of who one is.

Trust must be won. There must be a gradual rebuilding of mental pathways and a growing over of the old habitual ones learned in the cult. This requires time, patience, and the nurturing of a desire to learn.

SS Training

There are some disturbing parallels to life in the COG/TFI to be found in certain political movements and philosophies (and possibly true for other cults that I do not have firsthand experience with).

Karl Wolff, Schutzstaffel General, said of SS soldiers in the documentary series, The World at War, "They were subtly conditioned to see themselves as the sons of light, that they were engaged in a struggle against the powers of darkness. And that it was their duty to feel that they were at all times on duty for the nation, and in a wider sense, for the new order in Europe."

No subtle conditioning for us. It was direct. Berg wrote, "You are the children of God, the children of Light,"* and he told us that we were engaged in a war against the powers of darkness. We were serving God, and preparing to rule the world in the Millennium, when God's children would "run the world."

Hermann Göring wrote, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country" - or cult.

I've written about the "them and us" mindset in the COG, and the stifling of dissent. We were under constant threat of outside attack from "persecutors" and were to always be vigilant and on guard. Paranoid, in other words. (See Lies and Sexual Coercion)

And, to top it off, in spite of all the talk of “love” in the group, true touches of human kindness were very rare. People were too “busy with the Lord's work” to bother with such frivolities. Besides, we were the Lord's Army, and "God and His Family came first." I was even once told by a top leader that "there is no such thing as human kindness."

* "Lovelight," David Berg —Sequel to "Look of Love"— June 24, 1974 NO.307

Free Love and Guilt

I wonder if I had not been so wrapped up in the guilt I carried for being the supposed cause of all our relationship woes, I may have just seen the light of the cult's delusion earlier. And I wasn't the only one dealing with relationship issues, although mine may have been different from most.

Maybe there was something to all these internal issues taking time, and emotional and mental bandwidth.

The arbitrary and frequent splitting up of couples by leadership ("for the Lord's work"), as well as the doctrine of the Law of Love, no doubt, wreaked havoc in any and all relationships in the group. The indiscriminate "sharing" (cult euphemism for having sex) among members "as long as it was done in love," and the shaming of the jealous, made for much introspection, insecurity, and misery. Those who were jealous were "old bottles," "selfish," or "not yielding to God's will," etc., and in need of prayer, extra "word time," and deliverance. In extreme cases, exorcism.

Accordingly, we had a group of people who were so busy fighting personal battles with "sin and self," that no one had the energy or initiative to lift their heads above the clouds and look around and question.

Who can say what would have been? The techniques the cult used to keep its members were (and still are) many and powerful. But surely the distraction of the Law of Love, along with the myriad absurd requirements placed on the shoulders of cult members, was a strong force in keeping us unquestioning and in the fold.

Jargon

As if there wasn't enough psychological isolation in the cult already with "keeping yourself unspotted from the world," being the "called-out elite," etc., there was another practice that helped to cement the "them" and "us" separation: jargon.

Plenty of ingroups have their own lingo that add to their own brand of coolness. The Family's unique way of speaking and thinking played into the illusion that they were exceptional Christians. Its "we only understand" language was one more brick in the wall in the manipulation of members' "normal" to be anything but normal.

Mostly taken from publication quotes or titles, a plethora of terminology found its way into a member's vocabulary. "JJT" for cleanup ("Jesus Job Time," I kid you not), "selah" for secret, "Systemites" for outsiders, "the girl who wouldn't" for someone who refuses the sexual advances of another member, "backslider" or more colorfully, "God's vomit" or "the Vandari," for those who leave the group. Even normal greetings were replaced with the vacuous, "God bless you! I love you!" somehow always said in a high, saccharine voice. The list goes on and on.

Euphemisms also abounded, "sharing" for having sex; "witnessing" for selling literature and cringe-worthy Family produced audio-visual tapes, CDs, and DVDs; and "provisioning" for begging.

There were even local varieties that seem to have originated from non-native English speakers, such as using "toilet" as a verb. "I need to go toilet." smh

And let me not neglect the acronyms, a TFI favorite, for everything from leadership titles (DAS, GAS, NAS), to places (WS, HCS, MWM), to practices (FFing, going DTD, BAR - burn after reading, DTR - discipleship training revolution designed to further indoctrinate the second generation), literature classifications (DO for disciples only, GP for general public); they are way too numerous to list.

All that worked to encourage camaraderie, the feeling of brotherhood and select membership in the secret, privileged club where all spoke the same bizarre language.

Cults and Maslow

Image from:  http://spiritofpurpose.com/

Imagine yourself feeling isolated, unimportant, and unneeded. Unexpectedly you find yourself surrounded by sincere, happy people who hug you, say they love you, accept you, need your help, and make you feel part of their - rather, part of God's - family. When that happened to me, I was overwhelmed. Surely I had found where I "belonged." 

It's like falling into a well once such a decision is made, as in come the biases, protecting self-image, reinforcing the rightness of that decision. (See Commitment and Consistency)

Love and belonging: done.

Above that come the needs for esteem and purpose. We humans need to feel that we are making a difference - that our work has meaning. How much more valuable is a life of meaning?

In the cult, we were continually reminded in publication after publication that ours was the most important work in the world. Because that was nonsense, this artificial sense of importance was necessarily repeated ad nauseam. (Repetition feeds belief.) We were working directly for God himself - the only work with eternal rewards. We were always kept busy; we were so important, and there was so little time, so much to do, so few "called out ones" to do it, that we needed to "burn the candle at both ends," and "burn out fast and bright for Jesus."

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,"* or so cult members, with their elevated sense of self-importance, blissfully believe.

*Henry V, Shakespeare.

Cults and Abusive Relations are Alike

The similarity of mental process that I demonstrated both in my cult subservience and in my abusive marriage lead me to believe that the psychology is one and the same. 

One important characteristic of cults, in order for them to continue and thrive, is isolationism—if not physical isolation (like Jonestown), then social isolation (like TFI, where we were taught that "you are in the world, but not of the world," and to "keep yourself unspotted from the world," as the Bible admonishes). Separation from outsiders, a "them and us" mentality, is a crucial part of the doctrine.  

This same condition applied to my nuclear family life. After leaving communal life, we remained in a country that, shall I say, is not particularly open to foreigners, nor is the language easy to pick up. We were looked on as "outsiders" by the community around us, which seemed to suit our mentality just fine, having been immersed in the isolation of cult life for all of my husband's and my adult lives. Isolation and "being separate" were second nature to us.

In this atmosphere of isolation, my loyalty to my family was strong, as had been my cult loyalty which fortunately, by this time, was beginning to wane. (This period coincided with the publication of remarkably bizarre new doctrines which the "Prophetess" had "received from the Lord," as I wrote about previously. See Finally.)

Both cults and abusive relationships rely on belief in delusions. 

The TFI has so many delusions that it has filled volumes, highlighted by the collective wish-fulfillment of being God's children with the promise of heaven. As for my marriage, my delusion was also a form of wish-fulfillment—believing that my husband was the good, loving husband and father as described by my internal narrative. As is the nature of beliefs, I wanted to believe them, and in so doing unwittingly suppressed the reality testing function of my brain.

Moreover, both cult-life and my married-life played on my human need for acceptance and belonging. I have a desire to be useful and needed, along with the rest of the human race, particularly mothers. Both situations—cult and marriage—played to that need as well.