Psychology and Modern Warfare

Idea Management in Conflict and Competition

M. Taillard, Kenneth A. Loparo, Holly Giscoppa

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781349467983, 9781137349613
• eBook ISBN: 9781137347329
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

Throughout history, both military and commercial entities around the world have utilized these methods, and even since the formalization of psychological operations during WW2 our methods have improved greatly, but we are still only touching the 'tip of the iceberg', so to speak, of what is truly possible.

PART I

Idea Modification

We hold ideas about many things—we store information about the world and the society around us; we are creative and develop brand new concepts; we envisage ideas about the way things will be or should be; we carry beliefs about the metaphysical and the nature of our own existence, and can even contemplate non-existence and the infinite. All this is nothing more than a series of electrical impulses in the brain, quite similar to a computer though on a much more sophisticated level.

It starts with sensory observations: we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste everything around us, and as we interact with existence, electrical impulses are sent from our sensory organs (i.e., eyes, ears, skin, nose, and tongue) to the brain. Those electrical signals are a code, processed in the brain to form useful information, which is stored as short-term memory. If the mind sees this as important, it will be transferred to long-term memory, and if it’s not important, it will probably be lost atnight when you sleep, since your brain uses that opportunity to purge much of the useless information that you collect during the day. In order for this information to be useful, we must also be able to recall it, process it again to fit the context, and send electrical signals to our bodies to act on that information.

This is true for all ideas. Even abstract concepts such as the details of your faith, the manner in which you identify yourself or others, the names and faces of your family, any beliefs you might have about the meaning of life, and so forth all begin with the collection and creative application of data you have in the electrical currents inside your head. If you hold a strong enough electromagnet to your head, you can actually alter the flow of this electrical current in a process called transcranial magnet stimulation. Early experiments performed by Anthony Barker caused involuntary hand movements, and altered speech, as it was applied to the motor cortex. Since magnetism and electricity are two forms of the same thing, the magnet influences the movement of electrical impulses in the brain, altering the nature of the code between the time it leaves the synapsis of one neuron until the time it reaches the dendrites of the next neuron, changing the speed or direction it travels. As the magnetic strength increases, the influence is seen in deeper parts of the brain. These same types of electrical impulses that control movement in the motor cortex also control our ideas.

In having even a basic understanding of the manner in which we form ideas, it becomes possible to manipulate any of these steps. As transcranial magnet stimulation influences the electrical impulses that travel through our brains, so, we too can use any number of methods to alter the sensory information to which a person will be exposed, the manner in which he/she will understand it, the way in which it will be used, and even the form it will take when it is recalled. By identifying different steps to the formation of ideas, we can alter any of these steps to the change the ideas that people have.

Throughout Part I, we will discuss the way in which the ideas of an individual person or group of people can be manipulated for strategic benefit. This is all done, of course, without the use of electromagnets, psychotropic drugs, or any sort of surgery. Through mere management of the environment in which people operate, one can acquire control over the ideas that those people have, changing the manner in which they act and react to various circumstances as a result of what they know that they know.

CHAPTER 1

Messages

Every decision that a person makes is largely based on the information available to that person, and the information that is available can be controlled. In order to function in our day-to-day lives, we use pieces of information that we have already learned, whether directly relevant or not, applying them individually or in combination, and directly or indirectly. We do so in innovative ways as we continue to discover new contexts for their application. The process by which we acquire and process information is called cognition. Without cognitive processes, we would never be any more independent than a newborn. As we grow up, we build on the knowledge received from our parents—who act as intermediaries between us and the world around us—using the knowledge we develop for ourselves by receiving messages from our environment. These messages can take several different forms—simple observation, written or oral communication, mathematical analysis, and so on—but regardless of source, they each create within us a new element of understanding that we use to more effectively live our lives. This process doesn’t stop once we reach adulthood and it isn’t restricted to learning grand life lessons; we continuously learn and process new information about our surroundings, collecting a wide range of data in mass quantities and constantly determining how to respond to them based on how they mesh with our past experiences. We are always exposed to new things, new people, new places, new ideas, and so forth, and we base every decision we make, no matter how minor, on the knowledge we gain from these exposures. Therefore, it can be stated without exaggeration that by managing the messages to which an individual or group of people are exposed one is controlling every aspect of their lives—their decisions, actions, ideas, culture, and even their beliefs; even religion is a geographically inherited trait based on the teachings to which we’re exposed, typically as children. To control the messages that a person receives is to control that person.

The term “propaganda” is used to describe any message intended to increase the prevalence of a particular idea. This is an extremely vague definition, though, and could be applied to just about any form of communication. The term “propaganda” actually first appeared in 1622, when Roman Catholics urged the propagation of their faith. While proselytizing and other forms of propaganda date back to at least the Bronze Age, this is the first known use of the word “propaganda.” The word’s usage in this context also helps to illustrate that propaganda is different from standard forms of communication—a difference that stems from the motivation of the individual disseminating the idea. Rather than communicating an idea in order to accomplish some goal, the goal was the propagation of the idea itself, which ensures that increasing number of people share the ideas of the Roman Catholics. Compare, for example, the debate over gun control in the United States. To state the number of people that have been killed in gun violence would be a simple fact upon which a person can build an understanding of the issue; on the contrary, the cliché, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” is not intended to provide actual insight into the issue for the listener, but rather exclusively to propagate a point of view. So, for our purposes, “propaganda” becomes defined as communications driven exclusively by the motivation to propagate an idea. Since psychological operations involve conveying messages with the intention of ensuring that some group of people hold a particular idea, this strategic propagation of ideas can be considered propaganda—even if the messages are entirely factual—as the intention is aligned with our definition of propaganda. The goal of this chapter is to describe how the actions and reactions of a particular group can be strategically manipulated by managing the ideas they have, and so the term “propaganda” will be used throughout to describe any form of messages being conveyed for this purpose.

Elements of Successful Messages

Not all propaganda is effective, and how to tailor messages to maximize their influence has been a matter of extensive study for millennia. The organization that was arguably the most successful in the use of propaganda was the Nazi Party prior to, and during, WWII. The Nazis were so good at what they did that they have become a cliché, synonymous across half the world with everything that is evil. Simply put, if they had not been as successful in their campaign, they would not have been such a formidable and destructive force. The fact that they influenced and motivated people to commit atrocities on such a large scale across Europe during that time is a testament to their ability to manipulate the ideas of others. Led primarily by a man named Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda machine formally identified many of the elements that make messages successful in influencing others’ beliefs and ideas. Much of the research into propaganda since then has built on their methods, which were then used successfully during the Cold War, particularly during the anti-Communist “Red Scare” of the 1940s–1950s. By exploring how messages can be used to drive people to commit acts of evil, we can understand how to not only influence opposition forces to perform any range of actions but also identify and protect against such propaganda when it drives people to harm themselves or others.

The best propaganda is that which incorporates as much truth as possible, blurring the line between fact and fiction. It incorporates the ideas intended for propagation into a set of objective facts, shaping the worldview of the people receiving the messages and setting precedence for how they will respond in future to ideas which either conflict with what they’ve already accepted, or confirm what they believe. Educating the target audience in facts shaped by what you want them to believe will alter their actions, and, once they accept the educational value of the messages, they will then be more susceptible to accepting propaganda messages that are more extreme, as they are both aligned with what they already believe and originate from a now-trusted source. Putting those aspects of the message that are propaganda into the context of something true lends them credibility, blinding people to the questionable logic or unproven assertions being presented.

The line between earnest communications and propaganda must be blurred to be effective, however. If the message includes blatant falsehoods or obviously biased intentions, then people will not be as ready to accept the message. The best propaganda is that which is entirely true, and presented as such. Objective truths have the distinct advantage of being verifiable, making them far more easily accepted by the audience. However, if the truths are presented in a way that makes it obvious that they would harm the audience, the receiver might intellectually know that the message is true (assuming they don’t immediately go into denial, a state where a person refuses to acknowledge the truth), but refuse to act upon it in the way intended by its sender. The most effective propaganda is that which people don’t recognize as propaganda because, when it is obvious, then the audience is receiving multiple messages. There is the message that was constructed to be received by the target audience, but the manner in which the message is sent also sends a message. Even if the intended message may be entirely true, if the message is presented in such a way that it appears threatening or otherwise harmful to the receiver, then that, in itself, presents a message to the receiver. This is one form of competing ideas that limit the efficacy of a propaganda campaign. Other types of competing ideas include preconceived beliefs about the nature of the topic in question, and any new ideas that are presented to the audience that contradict the intended message. As noted in the Critique on Current Methods in this book, one of the primary problems associated with the US propaganda in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was the presence of messages being sent by political leadership that contradicted the ideas being presented in psychological operations missions. The message of the propaganda must absolutely be consistent. Ideas will be more readily accepted and spread among people when they are presented in an information vacuum; a state in which there are no other ideas or information available on that topic. Since the ideas being presented in a vacuum are not only unhindered by competing ideas, but are also novel since there is no assumption that others are already in possession of this knowledge, people will believe just about anything. This becomes quite apparent in the US during presidential election years, when blatant falsehoods successfully pass as facts on a mass scale, simply because the receivers of the message have no existing understanding of what is being said, and are not exposed to competing information given their tendency to refrain from performing any research. When people already believe in the messages being presented in propaganda, they will be quite likely to accept those messages since they confirm preconceived ideas. The problem, however, is not only that the people will be less likely to readily disseminate that information by word-of-mouth, given the assumption that it’s “old news,” and lacking novelty, but the expenses and efforts of distributing that propaganda are somewhat futile since they do not create a change in the audience.

Even in an information vacuum, though, a message will not be memorable if it is complex, confusing, or greatly detailed. Full analyses of the truth lack the novelty of being figuratively clever and, as a result, tend to fail at keeping the audience interested. Of all the possible sources of information to ever cite about any topic, the authors of this book were quite hesitant to include the following quotation from the book Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler. It is, however, an intelligent and insightful look into the propaganda that has been broadly accepted as a pivotal innovation in psychological operations, merely making the case that for propaganda to be effective, it must be stripped-down to its bare essentials—presenting a message that’s concise and clear of all extraneous material. It says that, “Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side …. The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward …. Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.” An example of what this looks like can be found in a propaganda campaign quite contrary to that used by the Nazis. US President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was marked by the highly repetitive use of a simple message: hope. This was communicated using bi-tonal, red and blue images of Obama’s head and shoulders, including only the word “HOPE.” This highly successful campaign, created by street artist Shepard Fairey (who became renowned for his “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign) was stripped of all information other than the association of Obama with hope for the future and is thought to have contributed to his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won in 2009.

Another thing that made the Obama campaign so successful was the use of wide dissemination and insistent repetition. A quotation by some unknown author, which is often misattributed to Joseph Goebbels, states, “If you tell a lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This mass repetition of a single message is thought to be at the core of what made Shepard Fairey’s art career such a success. He states in a 2010 documentary by British artist Banksy entitled Exit Through the Gift Shop that, “the more stickers that are out there, the more important it seems; the more important it seems, the more people want to know what it is—the more they ask each other, and it gains real power from perceived power.” This is used regularly in advertising, where it is called the mere-exposure effect, which states that people will develop a preference for things to which they’re familiar. For example, people who are exposed repeatedly to a song will develop an appreciation for it over time. There are some foods and drinks that people will say “have an acquired taste,” meaning that people will only like them after trying them several times. Sometimes, there is also a social obligation to accept an idea as people try to create or maintain interpersonal connections with those who have already accepted an idea to which they’ve been exposed; when the friends and family of an individual are the source of an idea, a person is more likely to accept it (we discuss trust and the sources of messages later in this chapter).

Since a message must be consistent to be effective, it becomes quite difficult to custom design it for different target markets, when presented en masse. To expose people to a message repeatedly, it must be easily understood without requiring much of the individual’s attention. As a result, the most effective propaganda messages are those that do not require one to have any prerequisite education to understand. More complex messages will not draw the attention of the audience repeatedly, as they will not continue to pay attention to the sources. Customizing messages to different target audiences violates the consistency of the message. The best method of manufacturing the message, then, is to make it understandable to all people and ensure they are exposed to it frequently, processing it each time without having to give it their attention. As Hitler states in Mein Kampf, “Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people …. All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed …. The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another …. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.” It is, of course, prudent to make your message understood and accepted by as wide an audience as possible, and so choosing the “lowest common denominator” among them will allow one to make the message relevant to the largest number of people, giving it the best chances of having the greatest influence.

Ignoring the statement in the previous quotation considered blatantly sexist by today’s standards, the appeal to emotions is the next element that makes successful propaganda. Although we will not discuss emotional modification in detail until Part II, it is relevant at this point to note that for a message to be most effective, it must emotionally engage the predispositions held by the target audience. That is to say, it is not as effective to target predisposed individuals with a static message, but to identify ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• A Critique on Current Methods
• Part I: Idea Modification
• Part II: Emotional Modification
• Part III: Behavioral Modification
• Conclusion
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Index