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PeopleNology by Gregory Bodenhamer Ph D
Nollijy University Mechanicsburg Pa 17055
Translating PeopleNology Techniques
into Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention Results
Social and System Motor Freight Trucking EngineeringWrite for FREE information; PeopleNology@hotmail.com
Publisher of PeopleNology Nollijy Leftovers Aunt Polly Nude Trucking Medicine The Royal Flush by Ph.D. Gregory Bodenhamer All Rights Reserved Motor Freight Trucking Expert Consulting Seminars
Working on the Truck Line
Curiosity of People
Royal Flush Truck Driver Retention
The Grand Swindle of Trucking Managers, Pay Packages and Mergers
Compliance Profit Service Growth Recruiting Retention Rewarding Recognition
Conversion

Conversion is the changing of beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviors of individuals into different ideologies. These pages are largely drawn from studies of destructive cults and brainwashing, although the methods used are surprisingly common elsewhere, including in religions, social groups and organizations.
Conversion techniques: methods used to convert people.
Retention techniques: methods used to keep the converted in the group.
Conversion theories: various explanations and collections of conversion techniques.
Conversion articles: a few additional articles on conversion.


Asset-stripping
Techniques > Conversion > Asset-stripping
Dematerializing | Reframing wealth | See also
One thing that most groups need to survive is money, and one source of this is new members. If the group can strip them of their assets, then this be a great contribution to group funds. With no way back, the person is also now trapped in the group.
Dematerializing
In their focus on what it right and wrong, the group removes material wealth from being worthwhile and good from their list of values. It is seen as a distraction from the core ideology and purpose of life in the group. Ownership of wealth and any other assets is thus shown to be a transgression of those values and hence bad and unworthy. It is also described as 'holding the person back' from personal development as well as progression within the group and its values.
The individual is thus encouraged to rid themselves of any assets. This may also be symbolized by simplified clothing and shared accommodation.
Of course, once they no longer own anything, they are now dependent on the group and its leaders. They do not have the money to return to their former life, and may have alienated former friends and family by their giving away of assets.
Reframing wealth
Assets and their pecuniary value are re-framed as being useful not to the individual but to the group and its purposes. Thus, rather than handing the money over to their relatives or other charities, the person is urged to donate the assets to the higher purpose of the group. Whether this is 'for safe keeping' or as a direct donation, the result is the same.
The act of doing this is richly rewarded with praise and attention and may lead to the person being promoted to a higher level within the group.
Where the money goes is another question. Many group leaders have burgeoning bank accounts and live in great luxury whilst their members live in very sparse conditions. This, if it is visible, is accounted for by their 'needing' this environment in order to do their good work. As an effective god, they live by different rules.


Confession
Techniques > Conversion > Confession
Agreeing the rules | Confessing sins | See also
Confession may seem like an odd part of conversion, but it is particularly effective at enabling people to put an undesirable past behind them. As well as a conversion technique, it is also useful for retention.
It is very widespread method. Some religions make use of it. But so also do parents when converting unruly children into functional adults. Machiavellian people and groups, where the end justifies the means, may well use it to extremes.
Agreeing the rules
The basic idea behind confession is that there are some things which are bad, and which contravene defined rules and values. The stage before actual confession thus involves reaching a point where agreement is reached about what is good and what is bad.
Starting easy
Agreement over rules typically starts with generalized rules with which it is hard to disagree, for example 'people should help one another'. There are many such common human values that provide an easy starting place.
Tightening the rules
These rules may then be gradually tightened over time. As people accept the basic premise, additional judgement criteria are added. Thus, for example, 'people should help one another' becomes 'people should help one another at every opportunity' to 'you must always put the interests of other people before your own interests' to 'you are inferior to everyone'.
The assumptions of guilt and atonement
A basic assumption (and by implication a rule) that is often unspoken is that the person in question is already guilty. Guilt is an effective lever that casts the person as imperfect and inferior. The associated assumption is that guilt may be assuaged by atonement of some kind, whereby the person may be forgiven for the bad things they have done. This creates a two-sided force by which hurt and rescue may be applied.
Confessing sins
Having agreed what the rules are, individuals are encouraged to confess past 'sins'. Again, this may start easily with trivial sins such as 'Not helping John carry his bags' and then progress to more significant 'failures'.
The tension of guilt
This creates a tension between the person's actions and their stated belief that the action is bad. The consistency principle thus leads the person to fully adopt the belief that the sin is bad and to distance themselves from repeating it. The situation is also encouraged by making non-confession to be a sin itself.
Release and atonement
Confessing thus leads to a blessed relief, especially when the tension has been exacerbated by declarations of how terrible sins are and how the person is understood to be basically good.
Confession under pressure can thus appear as a sudden breakdown, where a previous resistance suddenly collapses. This can lead to a sudden outpouring of information.
Confession provides an initial release, but further atonement may be demanded. This may start with simple chores or repeating of meaningful texts, but may also be escalated. Punishments may be meted out or may even be applied by the person themselves (thus further hammering home their guilt).
The subtle lever of authority
A subtle implication of all this is to position the sinner as inferior and the person to whom they are confessing as superior. This provides a lever of authority that the sinner cedes to the person receiving the confession, which then allows this superior person to control the person further. This control may range from defining new sins to giving direct commands outside of the confessional domain.

Category: General

Desire
Explanations > Emotions > Desire
Desire is | Triggering desire | So what
Desire is
Desire happens when we want something. The strength of that desire can range from weak 'would like to sometime' to a raging thirst to possess something now.
The paradox of desire, however, is that once we have got what we desired, we no longer desire it and hence may no longer find it attractive in any way. People get trapped by this pattern, for example in the way they chase members of the opposite sex, only to dump them when they have captured their affections.
Note the difference between love and desire. I can love a person but not desire them. Desire is the need to possess. Arguably, true love is not about possessing at all.
Desire is the opposite of fear. Desire attract us towards something. Fear makes us want to run away.
Triggering desire
Desire is triggered when we see or think about something we want.
Desire increase when what we want is visible, but just out of reach. It may also increase when we have closer contact with the item, but which we still do not possess. Supermarkets know this well, as they place foods and other items right under our noses.
Desire also increase with teasing, where we are offered something, and it is taken away, offered back, taken away. A variant of this is where the item is only available for a limited period. This is an example of the Scarcity Principle. This is seen in shops in the regular 'sales' they hold.


Love
Explanations > Theories > Love
Description | Example | So What? | See also | References
Description
Love is a massive motivator and can lead people to perform all kinds of self-sacrificial acts.
Three styles of love are (Sternberg):
Intimacy: Closeness to, and liking of, the other person.
Passion: Intense longing and physiological arousal. Ecstasy on reciprocation, despair on rejection.
Commitment: The readiness to do anything for the sake of the love.
These combine to create seven styles:
Liking: Intimacy alone
Infatuation: Passion alone
Empty love: Commitment alone
Romantic love: Passion + Intimacy.
Companionate love: Intimacy + Commitment
Fatuous love: Passion + Commitment
Consummate love: Intimacy + Passion + Commitment
The games of love are played on six different stages, and individuals will have preferred modes (Lee):
Eros: Passionate and physical. Looks are important.
Ludus: love as a non-serious game. Harm is not intended but often happens.
Storge: slow-growing, evolving out of friendship and affection. Similarity is important.
Pragma: Commonsense and pragmatic. Known conditions must be met.
Mania: An emotional roller-coaster. Stereotyped romantic love.
Agape: Unselfish and giving. Spiritual and other-focused.
Love can be viewed as a form of transference whereby one person puts a part of themself into another person and then feeling lost without that part, and subsequently feeling whole again when they relate to that person. PeopleNology by Gregory Bodenhamer Ph D
Nollijy University Mechanicsburg Pa 17055
Translating PeopleNology Techniques
into Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention Results
Social and System Motor Freight Trucking Engineering
Write for FREE information; PeopleNology@hotmail.com Publisher of PeopleNology Nollijy Leftovers Aunt Polly Nude Trucking Medicine The Royal Flush by Ph.D. Gregory Bodenhamer All Rights Reserved Motor Freight Trucking Expert Consulting Seminars
Working on the Truck Line
Curiosity of People
Royal Flush Truck Driver Retention
The Grand Swindle of Trucking Managers, Pay Packages and Mergers
Compliance Profit Service Growth Recruiting Retention Rewarding Recognition

Category: General

PeopleNology by Gregory Bodenhamer Ph D
Nollijy University Mechanicsburg Pa 17055
Translating PeopleNology Techniques
into Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention ResultsSocial and System Motor Freight Trucking Engineering
Write for FREE information; PeopleNology@hotmail.com
Publisher of PeopleNology Nollijy Leftovers Aunt Polly Nude Trucking Medicine The Royal Flush by Ph.D. Gregory Bodenhamer All Rights Reserved Motor Freight Trucking Expert Consulting Seminars
Working on the Truck Line
Curiosity of People
Royal Flush Truck Driver Retention
The Grand Swindle of Trucking Managers, Pay Packages and Mergers
Compliance Profit Service Growth Recruiting Retention Rewarding Recognition




Envy
Explanations > Emotions > Envy
The green-eyed monster | Envy and jealousy | Victim | Schadenfreude | So what
The Green-eyed monster
Envy is often associated with the color green and is portrayed as 'the green-eyed monster'. It is wanting what others have, desiring to possess what they possess. You can be envious of tangible and intangible things, including their wealth, their good looks and their innate intelligence.
Envy is often an 'identity' thing, as the underlying dynamic is not so much about wanting the things they have as wanting to be like them. Envy in such cases becomes generalized, from thing to the whole person.
Envy can sometimes be moderately positive, such as when you grudgingly admire what a friend has achieved, but do not like them any less as a result.
The most common form of coping with envy is, after recognizing it, taking a philosophical approach that says something like 'This is silly. Life is too short to waste my energy on this thing'.
Envy and jealousy
Jealousy is slightly different from envy as it involves a third party. It can involve potential loss, such as when we are jealous when someone threatens to woo away our boyfriend or girlfriend. Envy is always about potential gain.
Envy and jealousy overlap in the scenario where another person is admired by everyone else for possessing something. This gives you a 'double whammie' as it means they are both giving someone else attention and also not giving you attention. You are envious of the attention that they are getting and jealous because you see them 'stealing' that attention from you.
Victim games
What is happening here goes something like this:
I see that you have got something.
I see that I do not have that thing and hence feel inferior to you.
I justify this by making it unfair, that I am a victim.
This makes you the 'bad guy'.
I can now legitimately dislike you, perhaps even making you the victim.
Notice how we work hard to justify to ourselves that feeling envious, an emotion we may consider to be generally undesirable, is in fact ok for us to feel in these 'special' cases.
Sometimes we even retrospectively create envy when something bad happens to other people, so we can say 'they deserved it'. Again, this is all about justifying to ourselves that we can feel bad about other people.

Category: General

Greed
Explanations > Emotions > Greed
Something not needed | Something for nothing | So what
Something not needed
Greed is when I want something that I do not really need. I want it just to possess it. So what is the value of that? A common reason is to be able to boast and show off to others, hence increasing my sense of identity (my sense of control is also enhanced because I have it and they do not).
Something for nothing
Greed is also a form of hope where the expected reward is typically far in excess of the time and cost expected to be invested. It is very commonly leveraged in many kinds of persuasion. Just look at the use of the word 'free' in advertising. Look at the stimulation of greed in many forms of selling, get-rich-quick schemes and gambling.
It typically involves making the other person believe that they are getting an incredible bargain (often without your apparent knowledge). Of course, they don't get what they had hoped for, but they will do a great deal for you if they think you can give them something for virtually nothing.


Hope
Explanations > Emotions > Hope
What is hope? | The sliding scale | Greed | Hope as a destination | So what
What is hope?
Hope happens when someone sees something, decides that it is desirable, realizes that they may not get it, but believes that there is still a chance of getting it.
To put it tersely, though perhaps in a complex way, hope is expectation moderated by probabilistic estimation of a desired event.
For hope to be a strong force for tension, the person's estimation that the desired event will occur must be both high enough for them to consider there to be a reasonable chance of it happening, yet not so high that they become complacent.
Charles Revson, founder of the famous Revlon cosmetics empire famously said that what he sold was 'hope'.
Fear
Fear is a form of negative hope. Both are forms of anticipation as we forecast the future and experience emotions in line with our predictions.
The sliding scale
Hope is not a single thing. It is more of a sliding scale that ranges across a scale from virtual certainty to utter desperation. It can range within a single conversation across this whole spectrum. You can raise a person's hope, dash it on the rocks of uncertainty, raise it out of the waters and toss it around until the other person will grasp at whatever straw you throw at them.
The hope curve
The actual hope that people feel does not necessarily match the real probability of success. Typically we feel optimistic or pessimistic at the extremes.
At zero probability, we are realistically pessimistic, and we stay this way until there is sufficient probability to break out of the fear of loss. As the event becomes more likely, we become disproportionately optimistic.

PeopleNology by Gregory Bodenhamer Ph D
Nollijy University Mechanicsburg Pa 17055
Translating PeopleNology Techniques
into Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention ResultsSocial and System Motor Freight Trucking Engineering
Write for FREE information; PeopleNology@hotmail.com
Publisher of PeopleNology Nollijy Leftovers Aunt Polly Nude Trucking Medicine The Royal Flush by Ph.D. Gregory Bodenhamer All Rights Reserved Motor Freight Trucking Expert Consulting Seminars
Working on the Truck Line
Curiosity of People
Royal Flush Truck Driver Retention
The Grand Swindle of Trucking Managers, Pay Packages and Mergers
Compliance Profit Service Growth Recruiting Retention Rewarding Recognition

Category: General

PeopleNology by Gregory Bodenhamer Ph D
Nollijy University Mechanicsburg Pa 17055
Translating PeopleNology Techniques
into Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention Results
Social and System Motor Freight Trucking Engineering
Write for FREE information; PeopleNology@hotmail.com
Publisher of PeopleNology Nollijy Leftovers Aunt Polly Nude Trucking Medicine The Royal Flush by Ph.D. Gregory Bodenhamer All Rights Reserved Motor Freight Trucking Expert Consulting Seminars
Working on the Truck Line
Curiosity of People
Royal Flush Truck Driver Retention
The Grand Swindle of Trucking Managers, Pay Packages and Mergers
Compliance Profit Service Growth Recruiting Retention Rewarding Recognition
Emotion and rationality
Explanations > Emotions > Emotion and rationality
Clouding the waters | More emotion, less judgment | So what
Emotion and rational thinking are, to a certain extent, mutually exclusive.
Clouding the waters
When we get emotional about something, our ability to make rational decisions (which we will look back on and agree are good decisions) has a strong tendency to fail.
Consider the things we say. A person who is 'hot-headed' is considered to be rather emotional and likely to make rash decisions, whilst a person with a 'cool head' makes thoughtful, considered decisions. We talk about mental processes being 'clouded' by emotional states.
Emotion is a chemical state in our brains which we experience as basic 'feelings'. Those same chemicals inhibit our higher cognitive capabilities and limiting what we call rational thought.
More emotion, less judgment
The effect increases as emotional arousal increases. Think of the ardent lovers who have married in haste, only to repent at leisure (Las Vegas seems to do this to people more than most people -- but then Las Vegas is designed to stir the emotions).
The same is true when a person is frightened, and the Fight-or-Flight reaction gives them the ability to fight for their lives. Many homicides are committed whilst the perpetrator is an extremely angry state. Temporary insanity is a not uncommon plea, as the extreme emotion literally makes the person unable to make any socially acceptable decisions.


Primary and secondary emotions
Explanations > Emotions > Primary and secondary emotions
Primary emotions | Secondary emotions | So what
A useful notion in understanding how we feel is that of primary and secondary emotions.
Primary emotions
What is felt first
Primary emotions are those that we feel first, as a first response to a situation. Thus, if we are threatened, we may feel fear. When we hear of a death, we may feel sadness. They are unthinking, instinctive responses that we have. We will typically see these in animals also, which confirms our suspicion that they have an evolutionary basis.
Typical primary emotions include fear, anger, sadness and happiness (although it is worth noting that these can also be felt as secondary emotions).
Often transient
The problem sometimes with primary emotions is that they disappear as fast as they appear. Their replacement by secondary emotions complicates the situation, making it difficult to understand what is really going on.
Secondary emotions
What is felt next
Secondary emotions appear after primary emotions. They may be caused directly by them, for example where the fear of a threat turns to anger that fuels the body for a fight reaction. They may also come from more complex chains of thinking.
Simple or mixed feelings
Secondary emotions may be simple feelings or may be a mix as more emotions join the fray. Thus news of a wartime victory may start with feelings of joy, but then get tinged with sadness for the loss of life.

Category: General

PeopleNology by Gregory Bodenhamer Ph D
Nollijy University Mechanicsburg Pa 17055
Translating PeopleNology Techniques
into Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention Results
Social and System Motor Freight Trucking Engineering
Write for FREE information; PeopleNology@hotmail.com
Publisher of PeopleNology Nollijy Leftovers Aunt Polly Nude Trucking Medicine The Royal Flush by Ph.D. Gregory Bodenhamer All Rights Reserved Motor Freight Trucking Expert Consulting Seminars
Working on the Truck Line
Curiosity of People
Royal Flush Truck Driver Retention
The Grand Swindle of Trucking Managers, Pay Packages and Mergers
Compliance Profit Service Growth Recruiting Retention Rewarding Recognition
Emotion and rationality
Explanations > Emotions > Emotion and rationality
Clouding the waters | More emotion, less judgment | So what
Emotion and rational thinking are, to a certain extent, mutually exclusive.
Clouding the waters
When we get emotional about something, our ability to make rational decisions (which we will look back on and agree are good decisions) has a strong tendency to fail.
Consider the things we say. A person who is 'hot-headed' is considered to be rather emotional and likely to make rash decisions, whilst a person with a 'cool head' makes thoughtful, considered decisions. We talk about mental processes being 'clouded' by emotional states.
Emotion is a chemical state in our brains which we experience as basic 'feelings'. Those same chemicals inhibit our higher cognitive capabilities and limiting what we call rational thought.
More emotion, less judgment
The effect increases as emotional arousal increases. Think of the ardent lovers who have married in haste, only to repent at leisure (Las Vegas seems to do this to people more than most people -- but then Las Vegas is designed to stir the emotions).
The same is true when a person is frightened, and the Fight-or-Flight reaction gives them the ability to fight for their lives. Many homicides are committed whilst the perpetrator is an extremely angry state. Temporary insanity is a not uncommon plea, as the extreme emotion literally makes the person unable to make any socially acceptable decisions.


Primary and secondary emotions
Explanations > Emotions > Primary and secondary emotions
Primary emotions | Secondary emotions | So what %

Category: General