Prof. Rainer Mausfeld – Neoliberal indoctrination: Why do the lambs remain silent?

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www.uni-kiel.de/psychologie/mausfeld/
Mausfeld_Why do the lambs remain silent_2015

Mausfeld focuses on perceptual psychology and also works on the theoretical foundations of experimental psychology and the psychology of understanding. He also deals with the rivalry of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience in cognitive science. Another area of interest is the history of ideas in the natural sciences. He sees a major problem of the relationship between psychology and biology in neurological neo-reductionism. In contrast to biologistic approaches, he sees the peculiarity of the spiritual, inter alia, in the intrinsic multiperspectivity of the mind.
Mausfeld points out that knowledge of neural circuitry and activity is not enough to explain consciousness and thought processes. Not even the behavior of nematodes can be deduced from the activity of their 302 neurons. According to Mausfeld’s view, the relationship between nature and mind must be below the neural level in the sphere of physics. Evidence is given by the fact that nature is actually more enigmatic to us than our consciousness in itself. In modern physics it has become clear that the physical does not have the properties of matter ascribed to it. Mausfeld sees the special aspect of consciousness in the simplicity and wholeness of the subjective experience, which, however, reveals itself to the psychologist as a complex interaction of unconscious factors. The intrinsic multiperspectivity of thinking, which first opens up the possibilities for thought and action alternatives to humans after mouse field, results from the complex interplay of the most varied of factors.
White torture and responsibility of science
In his work, Mausfeld illustrates the role of psychologists in the development, application and justification of modern white torture methods. These goals are not, as claimed, the extraction of information, but rather breaking the will, disciplining, humiliating and shaming the victims. In his account, an American Psychological Association (APA) working group to investigate the involvement of psychologists acting on behalf of the Defense Secretary. Mausfeld uses the example of torture research to define ethical and legal principles and limits of scientific work. He regards the observance of human rights as fully binding.

Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychology , ’ white torture ’ and the responsibility of scientists. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1186/s12882-018-0886-5
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Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychologie, weiße folter’ und die verantwortlichkeit von wissenschaftlern. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042.60.4.229
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Cognitive techniques

According to Mausfeld, the cognitive ones are more important than the affective techniques, since opinions are more stable than emotions. Here Mausfeld examines the following methods:

  • Representation of facts as opinion
  • Fragmenting coherent facts so that the context, such as the historical context, is lost
  • Decontextualization of facts: The context of the facts is removed, so that the facts become incomprehensible isolated individual cases, which have no general relevance
  • Misleading recontextualization: Information is embedded in a foreign context, so that they take on a different character and, for example, no longer lead to outrage in human rights violations.
  • Repetition supports the “perceived truth”
  • Designing the range of opinions so that the desired seems to be in the middle, which most people strive for, if they are unfamiliar, because they then keep to the middle seein it as “neutral and balanced”
  • Making facts invisible through media selection, distraction and attention control
  • “Meta-propaganda”: It is part of every propaganda to claim that the news of the enemy is wrong because it is propaganda

The development of more efficient manipulation techniques rests on identifying psychological “weak spots” – those intrinsic design aspects of our mind and principles of human information processing that can be exploited for manipulation purposes. Most importantly, such principles are, by the very nature of our cognitive architecture, beyond conscious control. (…) Our mind has many hard-wired weaknesses that can be exploited for manipulative purposes, that facilitate our utilitarian abuse by the political and economic elites for maintaining and expanding their power. However, we also innately dispose of a rich repertoire of ways to use our reasoning capabilities to recognize manipulative contexts and to actively avoid them. This repertoire is akin to a natural cognitive immune system against being manipulated, but we have to take the deliberate decision to actually use it.


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Further References

Mausfeld, R.. (2012). On some unwarranted tacit assumptions in cognitive neuroscience. Frontiers in Psychology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00067
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Mausfeld, R., & Heyer, D.. (2012). Colour Perception: Mind and the physical world. Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198505006.001.0001
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Mausfeld, R.. (2005). The Physicalistic Trap in Perception Theory. In Perception and the Physical World

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/0470013427.ch4
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Mausfeld, R.. (2012). Der Schein des Realen.. Näher Dran? Zur Phänomenologie Des Wahrnehmens

Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychologie, weiße folter’ und die verantwortlichkeit von wissenschaftlern. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042.60.4.229
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Wendt, G., Faul, F., & Mausfeld, R.. (2008). Highlight disparity contributes to the authenticity and strength of perceived glossiness. Journal of Vision

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1167/8.1.14
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Mausfeld, R.. (2010). Psychologie, biologie, kognitive neurowissenschaften zur gegenwärtigen dominanz neuroreduktionistischer positionen zu ihren stillschweigenden grundannahmen. Psychologische Rundschau

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1026/0033-3042/a000045
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Heyer, D., & Mausfeld, R.. (2002). Perception and the physical world: psychological and philosophical issues in perception. Perception

Narens, L., & Mausfeld, R.. (1992). On the Relationship of the Psychological and the Physical in Psychophysics. Psychological Review

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.99.3.467
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Mausfeld, R.. (2012). “Colour” As Part of the Format of Different Perceptual Primitives: The Dual Coding of Colour. In Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198505006.003.0013
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Mausfeld, R.. (2013). The Attribute of Realness and the Internal Organization of Perceptual Reality. In Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/9781118329016.ch3
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Mausfeld, R.. (2001). What’s within? Can the internal structure of perception be derived from regularities of the external world?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X01530083
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Mausfeld, R., & Andres, J.. (2002). Second-order statistics of colour codes modulate transformations that effectuate varying degrees of scene invariance and illumination invariance. Perception

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1068/p07sp
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Mausfeld, R.. (2006). Wahrnehmung: Geschichte und Ansätze. In Handbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie – Kognition

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2141.2008.07177.x
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Mausfeld, R.. (2010). Intrinsic multiperspectivity: On the architectural foundations of a distinctive mental capacity. In Cognition and Neuropsychology: International Perspectives on Psychological Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.4324/9780203845820
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Mausfeld, R.. (2013). The Biological Function of Sensory Systems. In Neurosciences – From Molecule to Behavior: a university textbook

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-10769-6_12
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Andres, J., & Mausfeld, R.. (2008). Structural description and qualitative content in perception theory. Consciousness and Cognition

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2006.11.005
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Mausfeld, R., Wendt, G., & Golz, J.. (2014). Lustrous material Appearances: Internal and external constraints on triggering conditions for binocular lustre. I-Perception

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1068/i0603
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Erich Fromm – Disobedience: A Moral or Psychological Problem (1962)

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Professor-Erich-Fromm-Disobedience-as-a-Psychological-and-Moral-Problem

Secondary literature

Frie, R.. (2003). Erich Fromm and contemporary psychoanalysis: from modernism to postmodernism.. Psychoanalytic Review

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1521/prev.90.6.855.28785
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McLaughlin, N.. (1998). How to become a forgotten intellectual: Intellectual movements and the rise and fall of Erich Fromm. Sociological Forum

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1023/A:1022189715949
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Fromm, E.. (2004). 1929a-e Erich Fromm Psychoanalysis and Sociology. English

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1063/1.4810294
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Rasmussen, B., & Salhani, D.. (2008). Resurrecting erich fromm. Smith College Studies in Social Work

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00377310802111946
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Brookfield, S.. (2002). Overcoming alienation as the practice of adult education: The contribution of Erich Fromm to a critical theory of adult learning and education. Adult Education Quarterly

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0741713602052002002
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Davis, H. B.. (2003). Erich Fromm and postmodernism.. Psychoanalytic Review

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1521/prev.90.6.839.28790
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Wake up: The ‘Ascending reticular activating system’ (ARAS) and its role in consciousness & attention

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The reticular formation is essential for governing some of the basic functions of higher organisms and is one of the phylogenetically oldest portions of the brain.

The ascending reticular activating system (ARAS), also known as the extrathalamic control modulatory system or simply the reticular activating system (RAS), is a set of connected nuclei in the brains of vertebrates that is responsible for regulating wakefulness and sleep-wake transitions. The ARAS is a part of the reticular formation and is mostly composed of various nuclei in the thalamus and a number of dopaminergic, noradrenergic, serotonergic, histaminergic, cholinergic, and glutamatergic brain nuclei.

The ascending reticular activating system is an important enabling factor for the state of consciousness.  The ARAS also helps mediate transitions from relaxed wakefulness to periods of high attention. There is increased regional blood flow (presumably indicating an increased measure of neuronal activity) in the midbrain reticular formation (MRF) and thalamic intralaminar nuclei during tasks requiring increased alertness and attention.

The reticular formation is divided into three columns: raphe nuclei (median), gigantocellular reticular nuclei (medial zone), and parvocellular reticular nuclei (lateral zone). The raphe nuclei are the place of synthesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which plays an important role in mood regulation. The gigantocellular nuclei are involved in motor coordination. The parvocellular nuclei regulate exhalation.


Further References

Datta, S.. (1995). Neuronal activity in the peribrachial area: Relationship to behavioral state control. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 19(1), 67–84.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/0149-7634(94)00043-Z
DOI URL
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Edlow, B. L., Takahashi, E., Wu, O., Benner, T., Dai, G., Bu, L., … Folkerth, R. D.. (2012). Neuroanatomic connectivity of the human ascending arousal system critical to consciousness and its disorders. Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, 71(6), 531–546.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1097/NEN.0b013e3182588293
DOI URL
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Englot, D. J., D’Haese, P. F., Konrad, P. E., Jacobs, M. L., Gore, J. C., Abou-Khalil, B. W., & Morgan, V. L.. (2017). Functional connectivity disturbances of the ascending reticular activating system in temporal lobe epilepsy. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 88(11), 925–932.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1136/jnnp-2017-315732
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Jones, B. E.. (2011). Neurobiology of waking and sleeping. Handbook of Clinical Neurology (Vol. 98)

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-52006-7.00009-5
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Kinomura, S., Larsson, J., Gulyás, B., & Roland, P. E.. (1996). Activation by attention of the human reticular formation and thalamic intralaminar nuclei. Science, 271(5248), 512–515.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1126/science.271.5248.512
DOI URL
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Lin, J. S.. (2000). Brain structures and mechanisms involved in the control of cortical activation and wakefulness, with emphasis on the posterior hypothalamus and histaminergic neurons. Sleep Medicine Reviews

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1053/smrv.2000.0116
DOI URL
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McKinney, M.. (2005). Brain cholinergic vulnerability: Relevance to behavior and disease. Biochemical Pharmacology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.bcp.2005.05.019
DOI URL
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Mesulam, M. M.. (2010). Attentional and confusional states. CONTINUUM Lifelong Learning in Neurology, 16(4), 128–139.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1212/01.CON.0000368265.38415.35
DOI URL
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Newman, J.. (1995). Thalmic Contributions to Attention and Consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1006/ccog.1995.1024
DOI URL
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Robbins, T. W.. (1997). Arousal systems and attentional processes. In Biological Psychology (Vol. 45, pp. 57–71)

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/S0301-0511(96)05222-2
DOI URL
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Siegel, J.. (2004). Brain mechanisms that control sleep and waking. Naturwissenschaften

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s00114-004-0541-9
DOI URL
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Yeo, S. S., Chang, P. H., & Jang, S. H.. (2013). The Ascending Reticular Activating System from Pontine Reticular Formation to the Thalamus in the Human Brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00416
DOI URL
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Young, G. B.. (2011). Impaired Consciousness and Herniation Syndromes. Neurologic Clinics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ncl.2011.07.008
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Killing babies in incubators – The fake Nayirah testimony (PR PsyOp)

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The Nayirah testimony (aka the incubator lie) is a paradigmatic case as it demonstrates how the psychology of emotions is abused in the mass-media. Psychology in action!

The whole things was a staged PsyOp by the PR firm “Hill and Knowlton”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

Darda, J.. (2017). Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome Narrative: Human Rights, the Nayirah Testimony, and the Gulf War. American Quarterly, 69(1), 71–92.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1353/aq.2017.0004
DOI URL
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Marlin, R.. (1993). Public Relations Ethics: Ivy Lee, Hill and Knowlton, and the Gulf War. International Journal of Moral and Social Studies

Fowler, G., & Fedler, F.. (1994). A Farewell to Truth: Lies, Rumors and Propaganda as the Press Goes to War.. Florida Communication Journal