Science Friction WIRED Edition: How to Brainwash Someone

The film Captain America: The Winter Soldier

is coming to theaters.

(boom)

In comic books, the Winter Soldier

is Captain America's former sidekick,

brainwashed and turned against his own country

by a Soviet spy network.

Fortunately, forcibly causing someone to betray

everyone and everything they ever loved and believed in is

just something in the movies.

Or is it?

(clank)

I'm Rusty Ward and this is a special Wired edition

of Science Friction,

the series where I break down the real science

behind comic book and sci-fi superheroes

and tell you how to become superhuman.

To brainwash someone is to cause them

to drastically change their attitudes and beliefs.

The term brainwashing was first used

by journalist Edward Hunter in 1950,

after American POWs falsely confessed

to committing biological warfare in Korea

on behalf of the US government.

Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton wanted to find out

exactly what the Chinese did,

so he interviewed these former POWs

and wrote a book explaining the step-by-step process

of thought reform.

The first step is an assault on identity.

You do not like ice cream!

Do you know how many cows were hurt

trying to give you your ice cream?

Agree with me that you don't like ice cream.

Hello?

Are you really sad or are you pretending to be sad?

(crying)

Alright, I think he's really sad.

Good work, everybody.

Give yourself a round of applause

(applause)

Are they giving you enough pillows?

Are you ready to talk about how horrible you are

for all the stuff with the ice cream?

I know you're feeling really down on yourself,

but you know what?

It's not your fault.

You know whose fault it is?

Ben and Jerry.

Here, I'm going to turn on the camera.

This is going to make you feel a lot better.

I want you to read this statement

denouncing Ben and Jerry.

And then, I'm going to give you a sniper rifle.

I want you to shoot Jerry.

Don't worry about Ben, we've got a guy one cell over.

He's going to take care of him.

It's that easy.

But the oppressor does need to have absolute control

over the subject.

They need to be able to disrupt sleep,

restrict diet, and physically punish the individual.

This all makes scientific study

of brainwashing ethically impossible.

You can't replicate these conditions

without causing grave injury to your subjects.

Of course, that didn't stop the CIA

from conducting their own brainwashing experiments in 1953.

The program was called MK Ultra

and used hypnosis, electroshock treatment,

radiological implants and LSD on unwitting civilians.

After the program was exposed and shut down,

it was determined that the CIA had learned

absolutely nothing, because the CIA operatives

weren't trained as scientists.

The only thing they accomplished

was to put a lot of innocent people

through a harrowing ordeal.

Captain America would not have approved.

Damn right.

So even though there are no rigorous scientific studies

providing hard evidence of brainwashing,

many psychologists still believe it's possible.

Why is that?

That's because we've seen examples

of dramatic attitude shifts outside experimental settings.

In 1973, two armed men attempted to rob a bank

in Stockholm, Sweden.

The police showed up, and a hostage situation ensued

that lasted six days.

When the police attempted a rescue,

they were attacked by the hostages

and the hostages tried to protect their captors.

After being freed, one of the hostages set up a fund

to pay for the robbers' legal fees.

From this event came the term Stockholm Syndrome.

A year later, Patty Hearst was abducted.

Within a very short period of time,

she went from an unwilling hostage

to an eager participant in a domestic terrorist group.

Another reason psychologists believe in brainwashing

is because our brains aren't nearly as static

as we once thought they were.

Up until 20 years ago, we thought the structure of our brain

was fixed at adulthood.

Now we know that multiple factors,

such as pain, drugs, exercise,

inactivity, temperature, the food we eat,

can change the shape, size and structure of our brain.

Whenever our brains are introduced to a new stimulus,

a neural pathway is formed.

The information about that stimulus,

its sound, meaning, and associations,

are perceived by our senses

and travel through those neural pathways to our brain.

Repetition of that stimulus

causes a physiological change in that neural pathway.

It makes it stronger.

The stronger the neural pathway,

the more easily we accept those messages.

That's why repetition

is such a vital aspect of brainwashing.

And modern technology has driven home

just how easily our minds can be manipulated.

If you apply electromagnetic fields

to specific areas of the brain,

you can pacify someone, cause them to hallucinate,

even turn off their sense of morality.

And recently, two scientists

from the University of Washington

have developed a way to remotely control

another person's mind.

Right now, you can only induce slight movements

and you can't do it to someone who's not willing.

A slight movement is a far cry

from forcibly changing someone's core values,

but it's not hard to imagine a near future

where someone combines modern technology

with classic coercion methods

and creates a frighteningly effective form of brainwashing.

But until the day a totalitarian government

or a monolithic corporate entity

robs us of our free will and sense of self,

enjoy your autonomy and your independent thought.

And maybe keep an eye on your best friend,

because for all you know, he may be a Winter Soldier.

Thanks for watching, subscribe to Wired.

If you want to check out more episodes of Science Friction

check out the link below.

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