Resisting Intrusive Malicious Influences

 January 4, 2025 is the 60 th  anniversary of my arrival at Marine Corps Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina for the onset of a 4-year USMC active enlistment.  In thinking about that, I reflect upon the fact of my lingering Marine identity, and what it might suggest about identities in general.  Let’s start with my, admittedly bizarre, experience in Spain when vacationing there a few years ago. The incident occurred while I was waiting for a bus at a crowded stop.  A stranger with a heavy Scottish accent walked up to me and said, “You were a Marine.” In total shock, I asked, “How did you know?” to which he replied, “I worked as a civilian on a Marine base for 20 years. You all wear your hat the same way.”  I never had thought about hat-wearing as significant or even noteworthy.  At the time, mine was a plain baseball cap with no logo or words whatsoever.  My best guess is that the distinctive feature was due to the facts that I wore the hat tight...

The power of influence largely derives from the ways that it appeals to our cognitions and emotions. Professional influencers have clear, specific goals that they hope to achieve. They first strive to seize your attention. Then they seek to prepare you cognitively and emotionally to receive their message before they begin to deliver it. Once that is attained, they want to ensure that your frame of mind continues to remain as fully consistent with their goals as possible. In the language of psychology, that means the influencer offers “advance organizers” intended to create in you an enduring “mental set” that renders you continually susceptible to them. Further, because the influencer knows that his likelihood of success depends on how you align with him, he wants to make you feel that he values you. To do so, he might appeal to any of your thoughts and/or emotions. In the present chapter, we look at your mental functions that can be manipulated by those who want to exert their control...

Especially now, with the United States presidential election at hand, we are assailed by a never-ending barrage of comments about misinformation and disinformation. So, I wonder, what is the difference between the two and what are the implications?  One way to differentiate is to say that misinformation is merely something objectively wrong.  Whereas disinformation is objectively wrong and vigorously, manipulatively propagandized. Both definitions lead to further questions.  First, how can we be sure that we know what is objectively wrong?  Second, what does the propaganda promote?  An in-depth discussion of these questions is far beyond the scope of a modest blog post such as this.  However, the fact that I’m writing about it means that I think I have something useful to contribute.  Let’s presume for the moment that you are confronted with information, and have access to the source (s) that will allow you to identify and determine relevant objective ...

Since Socrates lived from about 470-399 B.C., one reasonably can assume that many deep thinkers have valued and practiced what we presently call the Socratic Method for at least the last 2500 years.  You no doubt know that the method employs a questioning and answering format, frequently called dialog-based inquiry.  The process can be slow and even tedious.  Is it worth the effort?  Hopefully, yes. When conducted properly, the Socratic Method enables both questioner and answerer to learn. And that learning is not limited merely to acquiring objective information.  Both also learn about themselves, about each other, and about the way they think, as individuals and as a dyad.  Ideally, their ideas are critically examined, reflected upon, and refined.  It’s no secret that often the putative experts learn as much or more than the novices with whom they are dialoging.  So, those are some benefits to dialogic discourse.  Non-dialogic discourse, th...

This blog post is written on September 11, 2024, a day after the first Trump-Harris televised debate.  Private and public speculation has been frenzied and frantic.  Some have suggested or implied that the fate of America, even of the planet, will be determined by the presidential election—“the most important election in our history.”  Democrat and Republican partisans are employing every influence trick to nudge, scare, or bludgeon you to vote their way. I am not in that business.  Rather, I have a modest suggestion that is easier said than done: think, really think, for yourself.  Since neither you nor I have the time or expertise to parse every essential detail required to make the best voting decision, I limit myself to briefly discussing two related topics. First, let’s consider an often mentioned but rarely practiced mental activity – mindfulness.  Our simple working definition is mindfulness as your being aware of what is happening to you internally ...

  Clinical psychologists explicitly or implicitly communicate to patients the importance of their speaking as honestly and completely as possible, especially when asking and answering questions.  And, expecting honesty and completeness, non-clinical psychologists regularly use surveys of various sorts to conduct their research. Given that honest and complete communication often requires courage and resolve, Cory J. Clark and colleagues (2024) wondered whether psychologists had sufficient grit and conviction to follow their own advice.  Their study was important because the psychologist-participants were university professors-- meaning that they profoundly influence the current and future direction of psychologists, psychology majors, and students of all other majors enrolled in their classes. The candidate professors taught at “the top 100 universities and the top 100 psychology graduate programs in the United States according to U.S. News & World Report rankings...