brainwashing

Thought Reform It can't be said enough: people join cults because they are lied to about what type of group they are joining. And while cult members can often ostensibly leave "whenever they want to," most are no longer thinking about that option from an independent state of mind. Their...

In the late 1950s, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton studied former prisoners of Korean War and Chinese war camps. He determined that they'd undergone a multistep process that began with attacks on the prisoner's sense of self and ended with what appeared to be a change in beliefs. Lifton...

Dur*ing the Korean War, Korean and Chinese captors reportedly brainwashed American POWs held in prison camps. Several prisoners ultimately confessed to waging germ warfare -- which they hadn't -- and pledged allegiance to communism by th*e end of their captivity. At least 21 soldiers refused to...