Debunking ‘Brainwashing’ in Psychology

‘Brainwashing’ – a term that came into Western parlance in the 50s – has since been discredited as being ‘far from precise and with questionable utility’.

Rebecca Moore, a religious studies scholar, mentions how the term ‘cult’ or ‘brainwashing’ somehow only ends up being applied to groups that we would like to disapprove of – Why don’t we say that soldiers are brainwashed to kill? Why is that ‘training’ and somehow when it comes to religion, everything becomes ‘brainwashing’?

The term is not only inaccurate, but has NO SCIENTIFIC GROUNDING whatsoever. More than anything, it dehumanizes the people involved, denying the agency of FREE-WILL in each one.

In the 1980s, psychologist Margaret Singer, a self-proclaimed “authority” on New Religious Movements, used existing work on brainwashing in order to hire herself out as an expert witness in civil damages cases against minority religions—for a substantial fee.

Singer’s theories were “not based on systematic research on new religions, but rather simply transferred this pseudoscientific brainwashing theory to an ideological attack on new religions.

On May 11, 1987, the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA) formally dismissed Singer’s notions of coercive persuasion.

“Religious brainwashing” is a fantasy; it is nothing but the invention of an uninformed minority used to spread anti-religious sentiments about new and minority religions.

Be aware that when someone accuses another of having been “brainwashed”, they are speaking from a deep well of prejudice and manufactured hysteria.

“The brainwashing explanation ignores this social scientific research. It infantilizes individuals by denying them personal agency and suggesting that they are not responsible for their actions. The courts don’t buy brainwashing.

Why should we?”

For further reading:
1. Debunking the Myth of Religious “Brainwashing”
https://www.standleague.org/facts-vs-fiction/whitepapers/debunking-the-myth-of-religious-brainwashing.html
2. Brainwashing and the Cults: The Rise and Fall of a Theory
https://www.cesnur.org/testi/melton.htm
3. There’s No Such Thing as “Brainwashing”
https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2018/07/19/theres_no_such_thing_as_brainwashing.html
4. The Image of “Brainwashing”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2747305?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents