Vipasana Using Tools of Influence.

Vipasana and the powerful tools of Persuasion and Influence.

I attended the Vipasanna centre's much coveted 7 day meditation session to figure out first hand how human psychological misgivings can be exploited in order to convince anybody to comply.

This has been a topic of interest for me since last 02 years now and I thought what better place to witness the action than in a cult following set up.

I need to add a disclaimer that I am not here to judge the intention of the Vipassana centre run by Mr. Goenka. A lot of good work can be achieved by using the powerful tools of persuasion and on face value, it seems this centre is doing good work for humanity.

The reason for this disclaimer comes from our root tendency to look an institution in bad light if it is revealed that they have been able to receive the audience's approval by Psychologically working them.


Back to the topic, Vipasana guys were able to get such high rate of compliance because of some time tested amazing psychological tactics which are almost full proof due to human minds limitations.

1. Pavlovian Dog association. Well, for the uninitiated, Pavlov was a Physiologist who became famous for his experiments with dogs. He made a living hell out of their already Dog life.
   

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In a nutshell what he figured out was that if you do a set of things along with a given action, a dog's mind starts associating that action with that activity. For example every time you ring a bell, and give dog the food, next time you ring a bell dog will start salivating in anticipation of food.

Turns out there is a dog in every man. Coca Cola uses the pavlovian association beautifully in their Ads. You will find coca cola associating themselves with moments of happiness, festivals, celebrations, wins, world cups. So the next time you feel happy, you doggily ask for a coke.


Vipassana guys beautifully used this syndrome by ringing a big 'GHANTA'(BELL) for every time they wanted us to wake up. That Bell had an echo to it and it would ring in our psyche. Some people were actually scared of it and boy did that work.

In a couple of days itself mind was conditioned to BELL = Wake UP. We became pavlovian dogs responding to the sound of a 'ghanta' How else do you justify lazy bums waking up at 4:00 AM walking like programmed zombies in queue to meditate.

2. Expert Bias: It is given for humans to simply give in to the expert advise. No body is sparred from this. Your educational qualification is not a shield. Even Doctors fall in this trap by quoting WHO verbatim (not realizing that WHO made those stupid rules sitting in the confines of an AC office, not aware of ground realities of third world).

If the expert has said it, It must be true. Every time some body revolted in Vipassana, the guards (volunteers, ex students) gave them the ample doze of expert bias saying GURUJI expects you to do this. GURU JI this and GURUJI that.

No body and I mean no body even bothered to ask the credentials of this 'GURU JI'. People simply gave in. That is another bias by the way, giving in to the story and not relying on the fact. If somebody builds a story around a person, event, company, religion or anything for that matter. People have a tendency of believing it on its face value and not really go in the details of back testing it, verifying it, questioning it or analysing it.

This is one of the reasons that a lot of crooks (non enlightened people) end up having a huge fan following.

Type 'Milgram Experiment' on You tube and see what comes up. It will open your eyes to this BIAS.

3. Social Proof Bias. Vipassana guys use this wonderfully to get the compliance.

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People unless educated against this bias are basically sheep. They will do what the majority is doing. Even when they know for sure that this is hell and that this is shit, they will still do it. They don't want to be standing alone being right. It is better to be wrong in group than right all alone.

Vipassana volunteers would come and tell you in a condescending way, every body has reached the meditation hall, you are late. Every body is doing that. Everybody this and Every body that.

4. Pain Threshold Bias. There was this amazing study done by Nobel prize winner Psychologist Mr Daniel Kahneman.

He figured that human mind is divided into remembering self and Experiencing self. The remembering self does not care about the duration of a pleasant or unpleasant experience. Rather, it retrospectively rates an experience by the peak (or valley) of the experience, and by the way it ends. Further, the remembering self dominated the patients ultimate conclusion.

Kahneman demonstrated the principle using two groups of patients undergoing painful colonoscopies. Group A got the normal procedure. Group B, unknowingly received a few extra minutes of less painful discomfort after the end of the examination, i.e., more total discomfort. However, since Group B’s procedure ended less painfully, the patients in this group retrospectively minded the whole affair less.

Vipassana does that beautifully. They end the session on a high note. Every body hugging each other, breaking the silence vow; Positive energy emitting all around. You can make a person go thru hell and give him a hug and a kiss and a chocolate and all is well. Our politicians by the way are not as dumb as we think. They apply the same bias by doing some work in the last few months before elections. All is well that Ends well.

I hope you found the article interesting. Please bear in mind my intention here is NOT to demean the Vipassana centre. They seem to be doing a wonderful job, (I don't know, and I won't judge). My job was to find the use of persuasion and influence in getting compliance.

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