Episode 70: Defending Our Minds from Psychological Manipulation
Guest: Dr. Dustin Rozario Steinhagen
Full show notes at https://hoosleft.us/
Find Dustin at https://dustinsteinhagen.wordpress.com/
Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from the unapologetic perspective of the social democratic left. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers, and I’m recording from Bloomington.
A while back, friend of the pod Leslie Nuss, last year’s Democratic candidate for Indiana State Senate up in District 5 - who we need to get back on the show real soon - told me she was about to have a Zoom with a fascinating researcher named Dustin Rozario Steinhagen. Dustin, who completed his doctorate last July, was coming off a recent appearance on the popular podcast, The Influence Continuum with cult expert, Dr. Steven Hassan.
I listened to their discussion and thought we could all benefit to hear from Dr. Steinhagen, one of very few researchers working at the intersection of mind control and cybersecurity. His dissertation begins thusly:
“Thought reform – also known as brainwashing or psychological manipulation – is a profound threat to the security of the human mind. This complex form of social engineering is associated with terrorist movements, domestic abuse, destructive cults, and many other forms of totalitarianism present in society (Stein, 2017). Thought reform can result in various harms that range in severity depending on each person’s individual experience (Lalich & Tobias, 2006; Stein, 2017). The work of security and privacy professionals inherently concerns psychological manipulation – thought reform often occurs over the internet (Hassan & Shah, 2019), most data breaches occur due to one or more people being maliciously influenced by attackers (Hadnagy, 2018), and the topics of coercion, psychological manipulation, and undue influence have garnered increased attention from privacy and cybersecurity scholars in recent years due to their central role in perpetuating online privacy harms (Citron & Solove, 2022; Susser et al., 2019). The primary tactic for defending people against all forms of psychological exploitation is education and awareness about scams, fraud, and the ways in which attackers exploit human beings (Hadnagy, 2018).”
In this conversation, we talk about the research at the center of Dustin’s doctoral thesis, define the scientific concept of psychological manipulation, and look at what kind of people are susceptible to it. Dr. Steinhagen introduces us to Robert Jay Lifton’s “Eight Criteria for Thought Reform,” and details how mental predators use these techniques online and in real life to groom people into an ideology. Finally, we’ll discuss the ways we as individuals, and together as a society, can defend ourselves from these tactics.
Before we turn to the interview, thank you all for your support - for liking and sharing on social media, for forwarding our articles and podcast episodes, for commenting, leaving reviews, and providing feedback - and especially for the financial support paid subscriptions provide. Your contributions have helped me make meaningful connections with fascinating people from across Indiana, and beyond. We are building a network of Hoosiers dedicated to making this state, and its government, work for all of us, not just the elite few. I have so much more to give you, this community, and Indiana’s future; but the reality is I need financial support to do this work. All I’m asking is $5 a month, or $50 a year, to help me write more, research more, organize more, and keep improving HoosLeft.
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Now, here is my interview with Dr. Dustin Rozario Steinhagen.
Cited in the Interview
Dustin’s Doctoral Dissertation: https://www.proquest.com/docview/3102571621
Dunning-Kruger Effect: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect
Anyone Can Be Brainwashed: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-cult-member-turned-expert-explains-how-anyone-can-be-brainwashed-2/
Margaret Singer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer
Robert Jay Lifton: https://www.robertjaylifton.com/
Steven Hassan: https://freedomofmind.com/
Philip Zimbardo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo
Lifton’s Eight Criteria for Thought Reform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism
Cambridge Analytica Scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
4th and 5th Generation Warfare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_warfare
Propaganda - Not Just For the Far-Right:
For leftists: https://gnet-research.org/2023/10/02/tankies-a-data-driven-understanding-of-left-wing-extremists-on-social-media/
For centrists: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240730-bending-of-reality-us-liberals-stoke-political-conspiracies
Can Mind Control Techniques Ever Be Ethical? https://www.cpreview.org/articles/2023/4/censorship-to-what-extent-can-a-country-justify-media-regulation
Seduced: Inside the NEXIVM Cult https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13269706/
Amygdala Hijack: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-happens-during-an-amygdala-hijack-4165944
Importance of Teaching Critical Thinking: https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/10/uk-children-to-be-taught-how-to-spot-extremist-content-and-misinformation-online
Need for Federal Data Protection: https://epic.org/campaigns/dpa/
The Algorithm Knows You Better Than Friends & Family: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/michal-kosinski-computers-are-better-judges-your-personality-friends
Sleep Deprivation as a Control Technique: https://www.alternet.org/2015/10/here-are-five-infamous-religious-cults-used-sleep-deprivation-control-their-followers#
Importance of Maintaining Communication: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-mind/202104/the-definitive-guide-helping-people-trapped-in-cult
Once again, that was Dr. Dustin Rozario Steinhagen, a scholar working at the crossroads of thought reform and cybersecurity. He gives us an important framework with which to look at the mind control techniques being employed all around us, at all times. We didn’t get to spend enough time talking about how to defend ourselves against malign influence, but he did devote significant space to this topic in his dissertation. So, let’s dig into it.
As one of Dr. Steinhagen’s mentors, the computational psychologist Dr. Shimon Edelman, explains, the human brain is a computer and the mind is computation. And as such, it can be hacked. Cult leaders, con men, and despots all understand these mind tricks and utilize them to run different versions of the same scam - deceiving people into giving up their autonomy by unethical modification of their identities (Hassan, 2018; Singer, 2003).
So, just the computers on our desktops and in our pockets are susceptible to viruses, so are our brains. In times gone by, these mind viruses (and I kinda hate to use that term because, like all things, it has been co-opted and weaponized by the right) spread more slowly. Techniques of the analog era, like pamphlets and one-on-one recruiting, are the equivalent of taking a floppy disk from workstation to workstation to install a new program. We used to have to do it that way, old man yells at cloud.
The internet has multiplied the problem exponentially. Social media is like plugging your head into LimeWire - you might download every song you ever wanted - and you might get brain AIDS.
All of us are vulnerable, particularly in times of rapid change - war, natural disaster, economic instability, social upheaval - hey that sounds like now! The widespread uncertainty, isolation, and anomie leave individuals even riper for exploitation.
And hey, that’s a 100 dollar word right there - anomie. The term, commonly understood to mean normlessness, was popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim, who defined it as "derangement", and "an insatiable will." He used the term "the malady of the infinite" because desire without limit can never be fulfilled; it only becomes more intense. For Durkheim, anomie arises more generally from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards; or from the lack of a social ethic. And if that doesn’t describe a handful of oligarchs commandeering the power of the state because, “well, that’s best for humanity in the reallllly long term", in a single word, I don’t know how to say it better.
The point is, times of uncertainty leave people searching for answers. That is why - in the wake of widespread financial collapse, a global pandemic, and increasingly omnipresent planetary climate breakdown - folks turn to conspiracy theories and authoritarian movements for easy explanations and a sense of control.
So, what is the vaccine to combat the mind virus?
Scholars and experts have advocated for more legal protection, and more education in the areas of critical thinking, reasoning, and detecting faulty logic. Others suggest a public health approach - think anti-tobacco and safe-sex campaigns. Also needed are protections for journalists and whistle-blowers, data privacy, and fully-informed consent.
I think it’s safe to say a Trump/Musk administration with RFK Jr acting as health czar - a conglomerate of con men completely dependent on the proliferation of lies and misinformation for their power and wealth - will NOT be distributing the vaccine.
Lifton warns about the creep of “malignant normality,” when a “a norm of destructive or violent behavior, so that such behavior is expected or required of people” - for example, doctors sworn to do no harm were conditioned to help carry out the Holocaust. We will largely be left to ourselves to fend against this phenomenon, so it is important we know our values.
wrote the following in 2016,“I want you to write about who you are, what you have experienced, and what you have endured.
Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.
Write your biography, write down your memories. Because if you do not do it now, you may forget.
Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them.
Write a list of things you would never believe. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will either believe them or be forced to say you believe them.”
We can also look to what Lifton calls “witnessing professionals” for inspiration, people in civil society working to combat malignant normality and actively exposing it. These are folks like national security expert Alexander Vindman, Dr. Anthony Fauci, officer Michael Fanone, and here in Indiana, Dr. Caitlin Bernard.
But, for the love of God, avoid cults of personality built around them. Grifters and hope-peddlers pop up on all sides, exploiting our innate desires for easy answers and hero stories. Neither the left nor the center, nor you or I, are immune.
The need for belonging is universal. It is normal to seek a tribe. Psychological manipulators know this and cultivate relationships dependent on disorganized attachment, or trauma bonding. Secure attachment, based on trust and truth, healthy boundaries, and emotional availability is the solution.
We will not get that from Trump/Vance and we won’t get it from Braun/Beckwith. So it’s on us to protect ourselves, hold firm in our values, and keep the light on for those who’ve been led astray. It is not a moral failing to have been conned, to have had your amygdala hijacked, or your mainframe hacked. Gird your mind, and the rest will follow.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Or holler at me on social media - on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and TikTok at hoosleft and on most other social media sites at scottrog78. You can also email me at scott@hoosleft.us.
Thanks again to my guest, Dustin Rozario Steinhagen - you can find him at dustinsteinhagen.wordpress.com - and thank you for listening. If you can, head over to HoosLeft.US and help support this project with a paid subscription. Again, hit me up on social media with your feedback, tips, ideas, and concerns. Please forward the show to a friend and have them to forward it to another friend. Let’s keep building this project - and truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
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