Cold War Psychology

What happened Pre Cold War?

Psychologists became very integrated with militaries and governments.

What are the two schools of Psychology?

• The Academy is established as a source of power.

• The School of Psychology has the respect of governments as an emerging discipline.

What was the use of brainwashing?

Began to be the go-to explanation for many scandals.

How did Mind control become?

Psychology & Psychiatry research was pushed in various directions by Military and Government funding for research related to mind control.

• Classified and public scientific papers of this era began to overwhelmingly center drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation and interrogation techniques.

Who is Kurt Plotner?

Recruited for Project BLUEBIRD by the CIA as part of operation paperclip.

• Recruit nazi scientists and absorb their research progress into the US.

• BLUEBIRD used Mescaline on unwilling prisoners.

What are the stages of Project BLUEBIRD?

1. Project BLUEBIRD

2. Operation Artichoke

3. Project MKULTRA

What is MKULTRA?

A mind control and interrogation research program, at least partially inspired by Plotner’s research, and the desire to turn communists and win the Cold War.

What techniques were used for MKULTRA?

• High doses of psychoactive drugs

• Electro shocks

• Hypnosis

• Sensory deprivation

• Isolation

• Verbal Abuse

• Sexual Abuse

• Torture

What is Perceptual Isolation Research?

Paid 20 dollars a day plus all the food they could eat, for as long as you could lie in the bed blindfolded and earmuffed and in a “loose fitting boilar suit”.

Who is John Zubek?

Assistant professor at McGill

• Participated in Donald Hebb’s perceptual isolation work

• Moved to Manitoba, and received funding.

• He abandoned his work as a behaviourist, and chased the funding of isolation research.

• He built new chambers and gadgets to remove sensory or perceptual input.

What are the results of Zubek’s labs?

• Cognitive and perceptual motor deficits post isolation.

• Abnormal EEG readings after 10 days of isolation.

• Increased suggestibility after only a few hours.

What happened to the patients who were “treated” by Ewen Cameron?

• Given large doses of Amphetamines and Barbiturates simultaneously

• Being given LSD without consent

• Kept awake for days

• Given electric shock therapy

• Listened to looped audio material for hours “Psychic Driving”

What is Sluggish schizophrenia (Soviet Abuse of Psychiatry)

Characterized dissident ideas about a struggle for truth and systematic as formed by personalities with a paranoid structure.

Who is Lev Vygotsky?

Developmental Psychologist

• Wrote theories critical of behaviourism, and its overly individualistic approach.

What were Lev Vygotsky’s major contribution to childhood education?

• Models of individual capacity (nature)

• Pavlovian conditioning in education (nurture)

• Models of disability (environment)

Who is Alexander Luria?

Soviet Neuroscientist

• Clinical work with patients with brain injuries from WWII

• Major work includes a model of the role of the frontal lobe, “higher cortical functions”, such as attention and memory.