Talk:Love bombing

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[edit] Keith Henson

When I first read this article, it included a discussion of the psychological theories of Keith Henson. I assumed he was a well-established and respected psychologist at a research university who had published in peer-reviewed journals. After reading about him on the Keith Henson page, I discovered that he has no social science research qualifications whatsoever (he has a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering), and that he is an anti-Scientology activist. He also happens to be a convicted criminal whose whereabouts are unknown because of his leaving Canada subsequent to his emigration there in an attempt to evade the U.S. justice system (and avoid being jailed) after his conviction. To include his psychological theory in a Wikipedia article and leave the impression that he is a qualified and respected researcher (which would seem to be minimum criteria for inclusion in any encyclopedia article) exemplifies exactly what members of the Anti-Cult Movement criticize "cults" for being: deceptive. The inclusion of his theory here was perhaps the most ridiculous entry I have seen on Wikipedia, with the possible exception of one Unification Church member's claim that Moon had "rehabilitated his image" by the 1990s. -Exucmember 22:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with Henson's credentials. Anyone can click on the Keith Henson link and find out who he is and judge his credentials. I don't know why you "assumed he was a well-established and respected psychologist at a research university who had published in peer-reviewed journals" since the article does not use the honorific "Dr." or "Ph. D." and does not say he is a psychologist.
There's no rule that only material by people with credentials is included in Wikipedia, and there is certainly no rule that only "true" material is included. The rule is that the material has to be traceable to a published, reliable source, and that it be presented neutrally.
If it is in fact widely thought to be credible, by either faction, the right thing to do would be to include it, together with any material needed to clarify the situation for the reader.
A few years before Margaret Singer died she discussed love bombing and capture-bonding in long phone conversations with Keith Henson, an electrical engineer and anti-Scientology activist...
However, I'm not going to do anything about it because the Keith Henson material rests on his personal testimony, has not been published, and therefore does not meet the verifiability policy. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
If the changes I made do not meet the verifiablity policy, please let me know. (Keith Henson)
If I ran across a Wikipedia article that cited a certain person as having developed a brain surgery technique, I would assume not only that the person was qualified to perform brain surgery, but that he might well be an above-average brain surgeon to have come up with a technique that is presumably respected in the field. If I subsequently found out that he was not a medical doctor at all (or even a pre-med student as an undergraduate), I would wonder what kind of encyclopedia would cite techniques that have not been reviewed by qualified people in the field.
Funny you should mention surgery. Try "Keith Henson" wet work in Google and take the first link. And while I would not call it brain surgery, I have put in a number of burr holes to see how much brain swelling occured.
Even if it were made very clear that the so-called "attention-reward theory" was the sloppy creation of someone not even in the field - in fact by an partisan activist (who some might regard as a crackpot) - it undermines rather than supports the argument because of its low quality. It is not a positive reflection on the discernment of anti-cultists if they they widely think this "theory" to be "credible." -Exucmember 02:13, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
There are (as of this date) 13,600 links reported by Google for sex drugs cults "Keith Henson." Those links include Google Directory - Science > Social Sciences > Psychology
An evolutionary perspective on sex, drugs, cults, religions, and ideologies by H. Keith Henson, including a hair-raising account of the author's encounters
www.google.com/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Psychology/Evolutionary_Psychology/
To the best of my knowledge there are no researchers in the evolutionary psychology field who have an objection to the article. If you can find one, please let me know.
Keith Henson 01:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] definition

what is the exact definition of this? i find the page to be extremely difficult to understand.

is it where someone pretends to be interested in someone else and love them, only to dump them much later on (months, even years later)? i've been through that several times, where people get off to seeing how much they can hurt someoen else after pretending to be their friend....

RaccoonFox • Talk • Stalk 01:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The introduction to the article talks about 3 uses of the term. The third "use" is really only an adaptation of the second. So the first two "uses" are: [1] the original definition used by the groups (COG and UC) - a genuine expression of friendship, and [2] a revised definition used by critics - implying that the "love" is feigned and the practice is manipulative.
It is quite common for a term to be redefined and then to have two meanings. It's even common for a term like this one to have one meaning when used in its original sense and a second meaning when used by critics. -DoctorW 20:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] COG predates UC?

Regarding "The phrase and practice were apparently first created within the Children of God.": The Unification Church started in the 1940s. COG didn't start until 1969[1]. I move that the sentence be deleted and that the sentence that follows be adjusted accordingly. Tanaats 05:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That sentence is supported by a primary source. There is a problem with your reasoning. Moon had an informal following in the 40s and a formal organization in 1954, but in Korea (where they speak Korean). Even if they spoke English, it does not follow that a term had to be invented in or about the year the group was founded. Checking the Unification Church page, I see that the first missionary was not even sent to an English speaking country until 1959. If the Unification Church came up with the phrase "love bombing", how do we know when they coined the phrase? People coin phrases all the time. The only evidence that can be provided is a primary source where the term was used, either in the Unification Church, the Children of God, another group, or in the media. As a matter of fact, I think I read somewhere the assertion that it was first used by the media, and that the Unification Church (perhaps also the Children of God?) adopted it. Whether this is true or not can only really be argued convincingly on the basis of primary sources. Rather than deleting primary sources in the article, editors should look for additional ones that bear on the issue. -DoctorW 20:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
If I deleted a reference then it was a miserable mistake and I do apologize. I'll be more careful in future. Thanks for catching that.
The sentence "The phrase and practice were apparently first created within the Children of God" was supported by the missing references? I don't see that in [2] or [3], are those the references being referred to? Or am I perhaps misunderstanding you?
Sorry, I just read what you wrote farther down the page. Please ignore the above paragraph. Tanaats 00:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
You're quite right about there not being evidence as to whether the COG or UC first used the term. My main objection was to the passage "apparently first used by the COG" followed rather closely by a rather critically-toned assertion that Loomis didn't know this. Well, he might indeed not know something that is only "apparently" a fact. I should have limited myself to that. Tanaats 00:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm the one who should have been more careful, in two ways (this is unusual for me as I am usually very careful). I see that you didn't delete the references, but simply moved them way down the page. Also, I should have read the relevant sections of the references the first time. The text implied primary source early usage of the term, and I took that at face value and defended them strongly. After reading the references I concluded that they are worthless (see below). -DoctorW 06:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to the History section

I made the following changes to the History section...

  • The UC is older than the COG. I took out references to "love bombing" having "apparently" been used first by the COG. For the same reason I put the UC info above the COG info. For the same reason I took out "(and apparently ignorant of the early use of the term within the Children of God)"
  • Took out "With no indication of the source of his claim" as OR.
You can't simply delete primary sources identifying use of the term that don't fit your theory. Let the evidence be offered to the reader. Also, if you had read the statement Loomis made in the context of the sentences before and after, you would (hopefully) not have been able to misunderstand what he was claiming. It had nothing to do with whether or not the term was independently invented by COG. -DoctorW 20:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] COG used it first?

DoctorW, just curious... Why do you think that the COG used the term first? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tanaats (talk • contribs) 21:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC).

I did not have an opinion on that issue (and frankly, I don't really care). My main concern was keeping the evidence. Although I read the relevant section of the Loomis article, I assumed the editor(s) who implied a primary source (either citing it or citing something referring to it) were acting in good faith. But now that I have read the relevant sections of those two articles (referring to early use of the term 'love bombing' in the COG), I can only conclude that the way the references are presented is very misleading to say the least. They actually offer nothing of value. I will delete them. I have seen this before on Wikipedia: implying that a reference says what it does not in fact say.
At this point I have to agree with the first comment on this Talk page, that this is a lousy article (at least with regard to the history of the term). There is not a scrap of evidence as to whether the term was used first by COG, UC, media, or some critic. (I don't see how Loomis could possibly know whether it was first used by someone in the UC or in some obscure newspaper article and picked up by the UC.) -DoctorW 21:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough thanks. Tanaats 00:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no connection with the Unification Church or the Children of God. I don't really care who used "love bombing" first. When I wrote that part of the article I was trying to disentangle the history, because the term is widely associated with both of those organizations. I thought memoirs in which Children of God members recalled using it early in the history of that organization were evidence of its being used there first. If you don't feel I characterized the sources correctly, OK. Nevertheless they are germane to the topic and I don't see why they should be removed unless you can find something better or more definitive. I've reinserted the reference and have simply avoided characterizing them as showing the term originated with the Children of God. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
After defending the references because of your characterization that they demonstrated early use in COG, I read the relevant sections of the two articles. Your statement above that they are "memoirs in which Children of God members recalled using it early in the history of that organization" is simply incorrect. Please read the relevant sections of the articles again. Former COG members who are now critical use the phrase to characterize behavior decades earlier. There is no indication at all that I can see that the term was used at the time. I did not find any evidence in these articles that COG members used the term in early years anywhere in either article. Can you produce a quotation from each article to back up your assertion? I admire your trying to track down the history, but I think you may have misunderstood what these articles show. I don't see how they show anything. -DoctorW 07:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I am almost certain that the term was made up by Mrs. Onni Durst (before she became Mrs. Durst that is) of the Unification Church. I joined the UC in 1974 and we were using the expression then. Steve Dufour 16:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, as noted above, I edited the statement in the article to say merely that the phrase was used by and within the Children of God. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Another question that could be asked is if love bombing is such a powerful mind control technique why do only these three small groups use it? Steve Dufour 22:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The UC is small? Regardless, I don't believe that the article says "only". Tanaats 22:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Its article says that it has 250,000 to 1 million world-wide. This is small compared to the 6 billion people in the world, or to many other churches. The number of English speaking Unificationists who might use the expression "love bombing" is much smaller, maybe 10 to 20 thousand. Steve Dufour 03:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, "small" and "large" are judgement calls. Let me just stick with my observation that I don't see where the article states that these are the only groups that are alleged to use love-bombing. Tanaats 04:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that just about every group of people in the history of the human species has tried to show love to people it was trying to integrate into itself. However only some members of the American Unification Church, and later some of its critics, ever called it "love bombing". Steve Dufour 06:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm getting confused by this exchange, Steve. To draw a line under it, do you have a proposal for changing the article? If so could you state clearly what you want to change? If not, then maybe we should just leave this discussion. Tanaats 06:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it's fine to have an article on the expression "love bombing" and the article as it is is quite interesting. Steve Dufour 06:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Dpbsmith, your statement that "the phrase was used by and within the Children of God" has no foundation. The articles cited show only that former members of the Children of God, in talking about the early days of the organization, chose to characterize the activities of those early days as "love bombing". I am working from memory from a week or two ago here, but I believe they never claimed or even implied that those terms were used at the time. Can you cite a quotation from one of those two articles to prove me wrong? -DoctorW 04:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A reader could infer?

There are a lot of uncited statements in this article. However the statement "In this context, a reader could infer that the critic's intention is to suggest that the organization has some "cult"-like characteristics" is IMO a blatant personal interpretation. I propose that it be removed. Tanaats 22:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did that. Steve Dufour 03:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Singer was an adjunct

Margaret Singer was only an adjunct professor. She was primarily a clinical psychologist, and drew her conclusions from clinical observations; to my knowledge she never did what research psychologists would call a scientific study. This is an important distinction. -DoctorW 04:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What counts is that she was a professor. --Tilman 07:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm darned if I see why it matters, either way. There seems to be quite a bit of subtle POV-pushing going on in recent edits, but fortunately it's so subtle that I don't even see the point. To me, what either statement amounts to is that she had legitimate professional credentials in psychology. Which, in my own opinion, does raise the credibility of her statements on the psychology of "cults" a small amount higher than that of a layperson (but only a small amount, as scientists, professors, clinicians, researchers, etc. are not immune from having bees in their bonnet).
I don't suppose we could compromise on "psychologist Margaret Singer?" And put all the details ("adjunct professor of psychology" or whatever) in a footnote? Dpbsmith (talk) 11:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
No, if she was a professor, it should be mentioned. She was more than just a psychologist down the street. --Tilman 13:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
How about "clinical psychologist and adjunct professor of psychology"? Being even at "adjunct" at Berkeley is an important distinction. Tanaats 17:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
There are also professors of psychology who believe in UFO abduction.  :-) Steve Dufour 17:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
And there are people to whom "psychologists" are objects of suspicion and derision, so that calling someone a "psychologist" decreases their credibility.
What I don't see is why she can't be mentioned as a professor in a footnote. I don't believe 9/10ths of the readers are going to appreciate the distinction Tilman sees. Call her a "psychologist" and put in a footnote that says she was a clinical psychologist[ref] and an adjunct professor of psychology at Berkeley. Then those relatively few who want to know whether she was just your friendly neighborhood psychologist or a big shot will find their answer close at hand. (By the way, yes, to me it is meaningful to mention that it was at a university which happens to be well-regarded). Dpbsmith (talk) 20:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

For those who may not be quite clear on what an adjunct really is, here is a dictionary definition (two entries):

1. And He said unto their young men, "You shall toil many years of hard labor, yet even then only the favored few shall enter in, for it is written, 'many are called, but few are chosen'; the few shall apprentice and sit at the banquet feast, but the many shall be cast into the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, and their only succor mammon."

2. The supreme good is like water, which takes a low position and gathers in humble places. It does not strive to reach the top of the mountain, but is content to keep a lowly station, receiving neither fame nor patronage. Heralds speak not of it, and it does not strive. Thus it is like the Way of the adjunct.

It is the second definition of "adjunct" that applies to Singer. As I said above, her main job (on which she spent the vast majority of her time) was clinical psychologist, and she drew her conclusions from clinical observations. She did not use the methodology of research psychology. Her role as an adjunct, teaching an occasional class, is clearly secondary, and this activity doesn't make a person more of an expert. "Adjunct professor of psychology at Berkeley" can go in a footnote. -DoctorW 02:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Haha, so "funny". --Tilman 12:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ticket to Heaven

The movie Ticket to Heaven (with Kim Cattrall in her pre "Sex in the city" days :-)) has another form of "love bombing" at 0:25:00 and at 1:03:30. The cultists claim that they will bomb satan with love. Then they all chant "bomb with love! bomb with love! bomb with love!" --Tilman 18:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could start a section on "love bombing in popular culture". Steve Dufour 04:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
What I am wondering is wether this form of "love bombing" was actually used in the Oakland Moonie recruitment compound, or wether the filmmaker simply made it up. Much of the film is clearly based on the Moon organisation. --Tilman 09:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Back in the 1970s the idea that we should love Satan would be considered very wrong in the Unification Church, so that part was made up. Steve Dufour 17:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Henson, part deux

Is anyone interested in re-opening the discussion on the Henson section? I was really surprised to find an electrical engineeer's theories presented in an encyclopedia article on Love Bombing. I'm a "computer engineer", and I also have talked with Margaret Singer. Can I also be considered a good primary source and get my own theories on the subject into the article? Thanks. Tanaats 23:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I take it back... somehow he got himself published in a journal. I don't know how. I withdraw my comment and my question. Tanaats 23:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

This very unencyclopedic entry misrepresents what the article does. It does not "explain the mechanism." The fact that Henson, who has no degree (even an undergraduate degree) in any social science or biology subject managed to get published, is surprising indeed. It's not a very good article, making all kinds of unfounded assumptions. This doesn't reflect very well on this internet "journal." Henson was an editor on Wikipedia and responsible for the addition of some of this section's contents. It doesn't belong here. -Exucmember (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, if you don't like it, take yourself down to a major library and look at my article in the Summer 2006 issue of _Mankind Quarterly_. It's a fully reviewed paper journal. Incidentally, I took more than enough psych courses to have a minor in the subject though engineers in that time and place were not allowed minors. I was also offered a place in the psychology graduate school by Dr. Trafton, himself an engineering graduate.
If you have a better evolutionary based reason love bombing works, please let me know. hkhenson@rogers.com Keith Henson (talk) 03:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Moved from my personal talk page, where edit summary was a personal attack:

What's your problem with evolutionary psychology?
There are no other explanations I know about that explain love bombing. It's not a big deal to me, being only a minor application of EP theory. But if you *don't* have a better evolution based explanation then why go after me?
When you think about it, it's about ten times as hard for a non-PhD to get published. I.e., their article would have more than average merit. Take a look at Judith_Rich_Harris for an example.
I may revert love bombing, then again I might not. It's the reader's loss. Keith Henson (talk) 02:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

1. There must be a Wikipedia guideline that encourages editors to be careful about promoting their own writing by adding it to Wikipedia articles.

2. Yes, you were very lucky to get published. It is obvious from reading the article that you have no substantial graduate education in psychology. Your published article shows several glaring weaknesses:

  • there is no thorough review of relevant literature, but there is no empirical study either - hard to get published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal without either of these
  • your psychological theory also seems to be without these foundations (thorough review of relevant literature, empirical studies), so it appears for the most part to be empty armchair philosophizing
  • right from the beginning and throughout there are highly questionable, very biased assumptions which are not addressed

3. There are thousands of professional research psychologists doing good quality research and writing whose material doesn't make it into Wikipedia. Even if yours was of good quality, it doesn't have a right to be here. In actual fact, it is out of place because it assumes love bombing is essentially as Singer described it and that it works in the way she proposed - but that is one of the points of contention (which - fortunately - is represented in the article).

4. The fact that you are an anti-Scientology activist doesn't reassure readers that the science you're attempting to do in your theory construction is impartial, objective, and unbiased. Psychologists try hard to weed out all manner of hidden and unconscious bias - they rarely have to worry about such obvious and overt bias as we see here.

Btw, I have absolutely nothing against evolutionary psychology. I think it's a very promising approach that will lead to huge body of professional work by trained scientists. - Exucmember (talk) 07:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

(1) There are such policies. In theory the wikipedia tries to recruit and encourage experts. Mostly they fail.
You are not an expert. I was referring to whatever policies there may be that talk about self-promotion, clear lack of objectivity, and conflict of interest.
(2) It wasn't a matter of luck. The editors wanted the wanted the articles and have asked me to do more articles.
I can't speak to the biases of the editors or their knowledge of what makes for a proper psychological theory.
Rather than "empty armchair philosophizing" you should say trivial application of basic EP theory.
It is empty armchair philosophizing because you do not have any empirical basis - a body of controlled scientific studies, and you don't have a comprehensive discussion of related work. Perhaps you can improve these for your next article. Better yet, get some graduate training in the area.
Re "biased assumptions" can you be specific? Far as I know I am only using the basic assumptions of EP.
There are quite a few, but a fatal flaw is the assumption that Singer's version of love bombing is what's going on - an insincere show of affection to manipulate rather than a sincere friendliness coming from a desire to have someone join in your activity, whether it be a cult or a student club. That issue is in contention in this article, but your whole section simply assumes one side. If it is recognized that there are two sides, your section has no place in the article.
It doesn't matter the least to an EP theory if "love bombing" is fake or sincere. I don't even address it, and even the people doing it may not know. I am only talking about how the psychological reward mechanism in the recipient of the affection works.
(3) Please see Judith Harris. You don't have to be a professional for your work to make it into Wikipedia.
You missed my point.
Re "assumes love bombing is essentially as Singer described it and that it works in the way she proposed" all I am doing is providing an EP way to account for the observations. Singer may have picked up the essentials of EP when I talked to her in 1999 or 2000 but as far as I know, she never wrote about it.
Clever, but off the point. See above.
I can't respond to (4), legal restrictions.
Re EP, if it is a "very promising approach" the consequents should be obvious to even those without PhDs. Unfortunately, research in the field is highly constrained by "political correctness."
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/holocene.html
"Politically, EPs are understandably desperate to avoid any association with past racist attempts to essentialize population differences that are best explained by culture. If it were possible that human cognition had undergone significant evolution during the Holocene, then it would be theoretically possible to ascribe significant differences in behavior between different populations to genes, and that would be EP’s worst nightmare."
Unfortunately for them, reality has been leaking in from such areas as economic history.
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf
"Critics also disagree that changes in human behavior are an appropriate model for understanding economic history, as opposed to changes in institutions. Scholars who have reviewed Clark's work also disagree as to what extent of the changes Clark chronicles may have been genetic in nature."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Clark_%28economist%29
BTW, I had no intention of making what I wrote on your home page a personal attack. Did I even put anything in the edit summary? Keith Henson (talk) 02:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Even if you had the qualifications and/or ability to develop a good psychological theory (which your article does not), it just doesn't seem appropriate that you would engage in determined self-promotion by repeatedly re-inserting this section into the article, and especially so since the presence of your "theory" in this article is the height of bias. (Comments indented four times above are mine.) -Exucmember (talk) 02:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Five indents above is my comment. You should talk about "bias" considering your background. My work in EP completely mainstream. Try to find *any* respected worker in the area who thinks I am out of line. Get any one of them to say my material is not mainstream for EP and I will back off. It's not like I am claiming this EP view of love bombing is the only one, it's just one way to consider it. Wikipedia is supposed to be unbiased in presenting different views. If you don't like my name in it, rewrite it using another author. I didn't write and don't particularly like the version I have reverted to. Keith Henson (talk) 05:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Amusing that you have deleted well reference material, particularly the last one. Want to put this up for arbitration? Keith Henson (talk) 03:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit point

Redddogg (Talk | contribs) (8,352 bytes) (conspiracy theories not needed) (undo)

Redddogg deleted a well reference section without comment here and leaving the above edit comment. "Conspiracy theories? Can you explain what you mean by that? Keith Henson (talk) 17:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

To answer Keith Henson's previous questions:
1. The final line in your pet POV conflict-of-interest section obviously doesn't stand on its own.
2. Your accusing me of bias based on my background is remarkably uninformed. If there were bias based on my background (which is not at issue, as I am not trying to add a pet POV conflict-of-interest section as you are), it would run in the other direction. But you may be right in the sense that if I saw a poorly argued, laughably biased, assumption-ridden argument by cult supporters, I might be more tempted to leave it alone in order to let them look ridiculous than I am to allow an undermining of the side of the cult critics here. -Exucmember (talk) 05:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
You are welcome to do that. You can also ask any of the big names in the EP world about it. There are a number of them, ask them if the theory is main stream EP. But it's legit even for authors to post material that's been published and this stuff has been published. Why do you keep removing a NYT article? Keith Henson (talk) 05:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Two examples of bias in the first few sentences of your article:
Title: "...why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people..." This assumes they do, an assumption you don't discuss. And you don't really explain why or how. Does friendship get a drug-like hold on people? How about a friendly gesture? An act of kindness? Social interaction can be very important to people, and at times influential, but "drug-like?" If so, how is love-bombing (something insincere and contrived according to Singer, or just being friendly, according to the NRMs in question) in particular this powerful? You don't discuss this.
Third sentence: "a whole class of memes (cults, ideologies, etc.) have no obvious replication drivers" Can we replace "cults" in this sentence with "religions"? How about "social interaction"? In the title there seems to be an unspoken assertion that friendly acts by cult members can be extremely effective, but here they are useless. How is cult friendliness different from the friendliness shown to new guests at a church? New members of a university club? How are these types of friendliness "useful" while the cult version is useless? You don't even address these obvious questions! -Exucmember (talk) 09:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Great points ExUC! However I've found that love, friendship, and kindness are more powerful than drugs. Steve Dufour (talk) 02:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Being descriptive is not bias. The basic notion of evolutionary psychology is that all common human psychological traits are he result of selection, either directly for the trait, for example the mechanisms that lead to the observable Stockholm syndrome, or as a side effect, for example drug addiction.
We are about as certain as we can get that drug addiction is a side effect because it is extremely difficult to imagine any reproductive advantage of lying under a bush wasted on plant sap. If you buy into this this view of the evolutionary selection of human psychological traits I can go further. If you think god created it all in 6000 BC, then there is no point in going further.
BTW, if you go read http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.mindcontrol/msg/103e03bce6100cac?hl=en& a 22 year old article, I discussed religions as cults that had aged 300 years. quote:

I have picked dangerous examples for vivid illustrations and to point out that memes have a life of their own. The ones that kill their hosts make this hard to ignore. However, most memes, like most microorganisms, are either helpful or at least harmless. Some may even provide a certain amount of defense from the very harmful ones. It is the natural progression of parasites to become symbiotes, and the first symbiotic behavior that emerges in a proto-symbiote is for it to start protecting its host from other parasites. I have come to appreciate the common religions in this light. Even if they were harmful when they started, the ones that survive over generations evolve and do not cause too much damage to their hosts. Calvin (who had dozens of people executed over theological disputes) would hardly recognize Presbyterians three hundred years later. Contrariwise, the Shaker meme is now confined to books, and the Shakers are gone. It is clearly safer to believe in a well-aged religion than to be susceptible to a potentially fatal cult.

I have come to a somewhat more paranoid view of religions/cults in the context of them being seed xenophobic memes that gain influence in the run up to war. I wrote about this in an article "Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War" in the reviewed journal _Mankind Quarterly_ two years ago. If you want to read it, it's in big libraries, or I have a pdf of it, or there is an unreviewed version on the web. Keith Henson (talk) 17:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I already told you I have a high regard for evolutionary psychology. This is not about evolutionary psychology. It's about your trying to play psychology researcher without training, which clearly shows in the gaping holes in your argument, which I pointed out and you did not respond to. In brief, how do we know the acts of friendship shown by Unification Church members toward their guests [1] drug-like hold on people, and [2] are useless and destructive memes that damage or may even kill their hosts? You don't even address these obvious objections in your article. -Exucmember (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Keith, on WP people are not supposed to write articles, or sections of other articles, about themselves or their own work. What you have to do is keep working and when other people notice it they will write the WP articles on you. Steve Dufour (talk) 00:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Ex, assuming you have a high regard for EP, then you should be able to understand the arguments in the Sex, Drugs and Cults article. Do you doubt that cults get a "drug-like" hold on at least some people? I justify "drug-like" because the same reward circuits are activated by drugs that are activated by sex and intense attention such as one gets in cults. After discussing capture-bonding in the article:

Capture-bonding does not by itself account for the influence cults have on their victims, though it does account for the success of classic "deprogramming" cult members by capture. To account for the success of most cults we need to look at a powerful psychological reward mechanism.

Of all the factors that have been measured in such representative ancestral environments as we have (including chimps), social standing (or social status) is the most predictive of reproductive success. This is true for both sexes, but the potential rewards for obtaining high social status were--and still are--higher for males. High status males had multiple wives or additional mating opportunities in the ancestral environment (and for that matter, still do). See http://www.clark.net/pub/wright/chaptwel.htm, heading ‘Men, Women, and Status’ and the classic studies of the Yanomamö. Yanomamö males obtain high status to a considerable degree by taking part in killing males from rival tribes. The high status Yanomamö males have about 3 times as many children as low status males 6.

If anyone doubts that males can convert high status (represented by wealth) into additional children, you can consult the historical records right up to a few years ago when Gordon P. Getty’s second family with three children came to light 7. Brigham Young had 47 children, and over 50 women as wives.

High status females, from what we can see in chimpanzees and humans, have no more offspring than low status ones, but their children are more likely to survive. (In bad times, much more likely to survive.) The evolutionary consequence is that humans have evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in status. With the big genetic payoff looming, it is no surprise that over evolutionary time humans have become so sensitive to status and work so hard for it. Status was (and to some extent still is) highly correlated with reproductive success. As Henry Kissinger noted, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." (Power is, of course, another word for high status.)

Activities that lead to feelings of increasing status are highly rewarding: that is, they cause the release of chemicals (dopamine and endorphins), which induce highly pleasurable states in the brain. This reward system is fundamental to human motivation, and in the ancestral environment it worked to enhance reproductive success most of the time.

Of course, people repeat behaviour that leads to flooding their brains with pleasurable chemicals. There are two causal loops involved here. The short-term reward loop acts over hours to years, and the long-term reproductive success loop over generations. The long-term loop sets up susceptibility to the short-term loop.

In other words, an Action (such as hunting success, for example) leads to Attention (an indicator of status) that in the short-term releases Rewarding brain chemicals and in the long term improves reproductive success. Simple operant conditioning will move some of the reward release "upstream," so that the actions that later result in reward chemical releases will themselves become rewarding.

In time humans discovered drugs that shortcut this Action-Attention-Reward (AAR) brain mechanism and directly flood the brain with pleasurable chemicals. The behaviour of eating, drinking, smoking or injecting drugs that simulate the natural chemicals is highly rewarding, and (in people genetically predisposed) leads to the repeated behaviour we refer to as addiction.

The brain reward system involved in drug addiction can be stimulated in other ways, for example by running (runner’s high) or by gambling. People who liken compulsive gambling to drug addiction are right; the rewards that compulsive gamblers get are only one step removed from exogenous chemicals--with the "Attention" step diminished (unless you are a big winner).

Gambling and addictive drugs cause misfiring of the AAR pathway, and often result in severe damage to reproductive potential, but both are recent on the time scale of evolution. In our tribal past, evolution usually favoured those who were motivated by the mechanism.

The importance of the AAR mechanism is hard to underestimate. It may well be that social attention rewards are the most important motivating mechanism behind human activities. In our tribal past status indicated by social attention was tied directly to reproductive success, and it is still a major factor in this endeavour.

It should come as no surprise that this powerful reward mechanism can be taken over by drug-induced rewards, but this is not the only way the brain reward system can be hijacked. Memes (we finally get back to them!), which manifest as cults and related social movements, have "discovered" the brain's reward system as well. Successful cult memes induce intense social interaction behaviour between cult members. This trips the attention detectors. Tripping the detectors causes the release of reward chemicals without having any more connection to "real world" improvements in reproductive success than abusing addictive drugs. Anyone who has ever had the feeling of being higher than a kite after giving a public speech is well aware of the effects of attention.

Examples of cults using focused attention include "love bombing" in Rev. Moon's Unification Church and "training routines" and "auditing" in Scientology. (Scientology’s training routine 0 (TR-0) has people staring at a partner, in some cases without blinking, for extended times.) An explanation consistent with evolutionary psychology for the propagation of the hard-to-explain memes at the top of this article is that successful memes of this class induce focused attention between those infected with the memes.

That attention in turn results in the release of pleasure inducing chemicals into the reward system of the brain. This release of chemicals results in the reinforcement of behaviours that led to the attention--identical to the process we see in addicts. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the behaviour of people under the influence of cults is similar to that we observe in addicts. Typical behaviour for both includes draining bank accounts and education funds, selling or mortgaging property, neglecting children, destroying relations with family and friends and losing interest in anything except the drug or cult. (Not all people become this irresponsible on either cults or drugs, but many do.) 8

Becoming dependent on drugs or cults is a feedback process on the brain reward system as well. Once a person is using drugs or alcohol to "excess" their non-involved friends withdraw attention-rewarding contact because “who wants to deal with a strung out junky or a drunk?” The same loss of attention rewards happens when friends withdraw from a person who tries to recruit them into his new cult. The result is to make the drug or cult a major if not exclusive source of brain rewards.

In the most extreme forms of cult meme “possession,” victims are so influenced by memes using the attention reward pathway that their own survival becomes inconsequential. I have used the term “memeoid” to describe people who fly airliners into skyscrapers, or strap explosives to their bodies and set them off in a crowd. On March 1, 2002 there was a news story on CNN about a Palestinian mother of two who was expounding for a TV crew how she was ready to strap on explosives. She was obviously revelling in the attention, but ambivalent about the reality of leaving her children orphans. Hopefully she will not carry through.

Evolutionary psychology thus provides answers to the question of why humans are susceptible to memes that do them and/or their potential for reproductive success so much damage. We evolved the psychological traits that make us vulnerable because social status is so important for reproductive success. Cults and drugs both take advantage of the same essential motivational reward pathway.

The NY times article you deleted (which was not about money but the brain level consequences of gambling) discusses a number of researchers who have the same view of EP and these evolved reward circuits I present. Dr. Westen's work is particularly on target.
Steve, from WP:COI

"Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is notable and conforms to the content policies."

Please look at the ranking of "Sex, Drugs and Cults" on these two pages.

http://www.google.com/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Psychology/Evolutionary_Psychology/

http://www.dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Psychology/Evolutionary_Psychology/

If either of you were published in the evolutionary psychology field or even had written about it in forums, your opinion would have more weight. Have you? Keith Henson (talk) 05:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not going to respond to your current and previous condescending tone, except to assure you that I have many years experience in conducting research in a closely related field. I read your entire post here, in spite of the fact that you have been wholly unresponsive to my critiques. The sloppiness in your argumentation here is even more glaring than in your article. It actually reminded me of some of the loose and amateurish arguments made by cult members. If you want to do psychology, at least get some graduate training. I believe you have the raw intelligence to potentially do some good work, but not without gaining more awareness of some of the approaches and habits of thinking that will hopefully be cultivated in a good graduate program. (Make certain you get a good advisor!) -Exucmember (talk) 09:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Break

There was no intent to be condescending. If you read that into what I wrote, it's an artifact of communicating by text. Sorry. Almost all of what I wrote above was a quote from the article responding to your critiques, so it's hard to figure out how it would be "more glaring" than the article. (From "Capture-bonding" to "motivational reward pathway.") The article (now over five years old) was favorably treated when it came out and has not seen a hostile review to this date that I know about. Leda Cosmides's only email comment about the article in draft was that John Tooby had reached the same conclusions about capture bonding some 15 years previously.

I don't know enough about your background to know if you are anonymous for good reasons. But if you don't mind letting me know who you are, I would like to read about your research in a closely related field. If you don't want to put a pointer here, my email is hkhenson@rogers.com.

You might enjoy this: http://www.fathom.com/feature/35533/index.html Keith Henson (talk) 15:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I have modified the EP section of the article to be clearly non judgmental. The EP explanation is just about how love bombing, i.e., intense attention, works at the brain reward mechanism level. It states evolution worked this trait (and many others) into humans for reasons that made sense back in the stone age. EP says nothing at all about the motivations of those who activate it today. Keith Henson (talk) 13:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You comments here lead me to believe that perhaps you don't know what love bombing is in the main group featured in this article, the Unification Church (even though that's laid out in the article). You have not responded to my specific critiques, even though I made them several times. -Exucmember (talk) 19:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, if you don't think the article responds to your objections:

Title: "...why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people..." This assumes they do, an assumption you don't discuss.

I specifically address this in the article. The same reward mechanisms are involved with cult memes and drug rewards. This is not a controversial point now with brain researchers such as I have quoted above.

And you don't really explain why or how.

Attention causes the release of reward chemicals, endorphins and dopamine that fit the same receptors as heroin and cocaine. This is not controversial either.

Does friendship get a drug-like hold on people? How about a friendly gesture? An act of kindness? Social interaction can be very important to people, and at times influential, but "drug-like?"

These lie on a continuous scale. Is the attention reward intense enough to cause a person to ignore the needs of their children? I don't know how common this was in the group you were a member of, but it was common others. And exactly like addictive drugs, not everyone is affected to the same degree.

If so, how is love-bombing (something insincere and contrived according to Singer, or just being friendly, according to the NRMs in question) in particular this powerful? You don't discuss this.

It doesn't matter. The section is about the brain mechanisms that respond to intense attention.

Third sentence: "a whole class of memes (cults, ideologies, etc.) have no obvious replication drivers" Can we replace "cults" in this sentence with "religions"?

Addressed by the 22 year old article quote above.

How about "social interaction"? In the title there seems to be an unspoken assertion that friendly acts by cult members can be extremely effective, but here they are useless.

That makes no sense, try again.

How is cult friendliness different from the friendliness shown to new guests at a church? New members of a university club? How are these types of friendliness "useful" while the cult version is useless?

Where do you get the idea that the intense attention from love bombing is useless? From the viewpoint of the memes I mentioned, it's the way they spread. As to how various kind of attention (friendliness in your terms) differ, it's the same kind of graded difference between coffee and cocaine.

You don't even address these obvious questions!

How much more detail do you need? Keith Henson (talk) 02:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the mainstream opinion is that "cults" have no special powers of influence that other people and groups do not have. Henson's theories are not notable untill they are discussed by someone else. Until then they are a fringe theory. Steve Dufour (talk) 22:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Steve, where in all the stuff I have written do you get the impression that cults are special? They happen to take advantage of an evolved human psychological trait, but so do con men and the process that leads to Nobel prizes. But if all you need is someone else discussing the topic to make it notable, try "brain reward circuits" in Google Scholar. There are almost 400 articles listed (including mine). And the web has almost 5000 hits on the phrase "attention is rewarding." Is this enough for your criteria? Keith Henson (talk) 00:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know the expression "love bombing", which is the topic of this article, is only used in relation to "cults". Why don't you put the information on your work in the article on Brain reward circuit? Steve Dufour (talk) 02:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
That's a really silly reason to delete an proposed mechanism. It like leaving a mention of Yersinia pestis out of an article on the Black Death. If you have another mechanism rooted in human evolution to explain it, please do. Keith Henson (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
It looks to me that the mainstream does not think that "love bombing" exists, or that "cults" have any special techniques or powers of influence that other people do not. The article does not need to "explain" how "love bombing" works. I will add a mention of your name to the article if you like, if not please remove it.Steve Dufour (talk) 04:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Steve, a concept does not have to be "mainstream" to get into the wikipedia, just referenced by "reliable sources." Love bombing makes that cut.

If a concept is notable and reference enough to get into wikipedia and there are any explanations of how it works, then certainly the explanation needs to be in the article. If there are multiple explanations at least the notable ones need to be in the article. If you know about any other explanations, put them in, but don't wipe out a published explanation. Do you have a problem with there *being* an explanation about why love bombing works? Keith Henson (talk) 07:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

There only seem to be about 3 people who believe that "love bombing" exists. A block quote is given from one and the other two are mentioned and given links to their WP articles. I think that is fair.Steve Dufour (talk) 07:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
You are failing to do your research Steve. Stick "love bombing" in Google Scholar. There are 143 articles, a lot of them have multiple authors so there are far more than 3 people who believe love bombing exists. There are 266 books that use the term as well. How about naming these three people? Keith Henson (talk) 00:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
You seem to one of the most famous. :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 01:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Damian Anderson

I was looking for information on the UC's leading blogger (if that's what he is) to start an article on him if possible. I ran into this: [4] It seems to be him but I didn't know he was an expert cook. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise

As a compromise, I'm willing to accept a presence in this article of a reference to your article, an explanation of it, and a quotation, as long as the most egregious, unscholarly, prejudicial claims (that have no basis in empirical studies of cult members) are left out. This would include the misleading implication that cult members have vulnerable dopamine systems, use of the exaggerated word "hijacked," and comparisons with "drug-induced rewards." Likewise, no implication that the field of evolutionary psychology has adopted or accepted this explanation would be appropriate. -Exucmember (talk) 06:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)