Framing Narratives and Inducing Compliance Using Moral Foundations Theory

If Americans could comprehend the amount of research that goes into media messaging, and how to frame an issue to affect attitude change, they would forever shut off their televisions. For the political elite, America’s culture of free choice presents a problem, one they see as standing in the way of their grand vision of Utopia. They cannot force their agenda without some smooth-talking aimed at the moral base of dissenters if they expect them to change their political positions. Even Biden’s recent tyrannical dictates, which many people accept as legitimate, demonstrate an understanding of political and moral framing of the issues. Millions across the country will accept his unconstitutional actions because of the effective methods used in presenting Covid-19 as a life-threatening pandemic. Research has shown in numerous instances, that framing an issue within the moral confines of a targeted audience is often enough to shift opinions and gain compliance with an action they may otherwise reject.

What is framing? According to the book Dynamics of Persuasion: Communications and Attitudes in the 21st Century, framing presents a relevant issue in a way that promotes the “problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendations” of a media message. Researchers have found that people are not necessarily the rational thinkers they are assumed to be. Framing issues from a particular viewpoint has shown that people are very susceptible to simple twists of words and reversing of logic. When facts are presented differently, it changes how people respond to them. A common example is how the survival rates of surgery may be framed. If a doctor explains a certain procedure has a ninety percent survival rate in one instance and a ten percent fatality rate in the other, people respond to the ten percent fatality rate more, even though the information is the same. Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory czar, writes in his book Nudge that framing works because people are “mindless, passive decision-makers.” He says people are not capable of thinking about how issues are framed, or if their opinions would change if they were presented differently.

This is important to understand because there is a massive academic effort underway which seeks to determine the best ways to shift political attitudes. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the media framed the issue from the perspective that morality would dictate conformity with the measures taken to stop the spread. The media persuaded people into compliance through careful manipulation of the narrative based on what they know about the moral perspectives of the targeted population. Persuasion in politics, according to the book, Political Persuasion and Attitude Change, is about the number of people that can be talked into changing their position to the other side, or nudged into complying with political objectives. Understanding the moral base of those seen in need of an attitude shift is essential to get naysayers to comply with government goals that go against their moral reasoning and political orientations.

The art of persuasion has been used extensively in pushing people to accept the absurd during the Covid-19 psyop. The technique of fear-then-relief suggests people ̶ after being exposed to a fear-causing stimulus ̶ become mindlessly compliant once that stimulus has been removed and they become overwhelmed with the sensation of being relieved. This deceptive method of persuasion was applied by keeping the population in a sustained state of panic and offering the vaccine as the only viable way of returning to normal. This worked on a large portion of the population; however, the insatiable thirst of the tyrants won’t be satisfied until there is a needle in every arm.

Another method of persuasion that has proven effective in shifting political opinions is Moral Foundations Theory. This model of behavioral change suggests that people’s political and social attitudes can be changed by framing an issue within the political orientations ̶ or moral foundations ̶ of those deemed in need of an attitude adjustment. Before discussing what is believed about the moral foundations of the politically aware, it is important to understand the different types of people who are most susceptible to attitude change techniques. According to an article entitled Persuasion, psychology and public choice, the moderately aware citizenry who believes they have a basic understanding of political processes is the most targeted for persuasive communication strategies. This is because those on the two extremes, the ones paying no attention at all to anything, and those deeply rooted in their political worldviews, are unlikely to need persuasion or shift their attitudes in any way.

“The third type of citizen is moderately sophisticated, and according to Zaller nearly all the “action” in political persuasion occurs in this group. They have at least some set of integrated beliefs about politics, and some understanding of means–ends relationships in policy. It is likely that they will pay attention to, and perhaps be convinced by, arguments that offer evidence for one position or another. And since many in this group are undecided in the early portions of campaigns, they provide a useful set of recruits for candidates and consultants. Unfortunately, since they also lack deep knowledge of policy problems, and have only partially integrated beliefs, they are also the most easily misled, and the most susceptible to facile and superficial arguments.”

(In the study of persuasion, it is a reoccurring theme that the social scientists conducting these studies believe most people are too stupid to do any research on their own.)

Using Moral Foundations Theory, the political elite and their media cohorts target those that are sitting on the sidelines with morally framed messages which fit in the parameters of their moral worldviews. In an article entitled Shifting Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Using Moral Foundations Theory, the authors discuss the methods used in framing political issues in a manner consistent with the moral values of liberals and conservatives. Like all studies in the social sciences, this one is rife with left-wing bias, particularly in how the morals of liberals and conservatives are described. There is some truth to their assertions, however. For example, liberal morals are described as being concerned with fairness and not wanting to do harm to others, whereas conservative morals are equated to respect for authority, loyalty to group identity, and purity of worldview. In most cases, liberals tend to show more loyalty to group identity than conservatives do but showing an ideological adherence to the liberty worldview is a right-wing trait to be sure. This is important because it is within this context that left-wing issues are framed to shift the opinions of conservatives to the left.

This study was broken down by examining how the framing of issues swayed the beliefs of participants ̶ if at all ̶ from their moral foundations. In some cases, if a conservative issue was framed in a conservative moral framework, the opinions of conservatives became more embedded. This is referred to as the entrenching hypothesis. In most cases, the same was true for liberals. The persuasion hypotheses, however, yielded some interesting results. When a left-wing issue was presented using an argument framed in the moral foundations assigned to conservatives, they were more likely to shift their opinions than liberals were. This is done from the “purity to worldview” morality assigned to the right. A New York Times article entitled The Key to Political Persuasion explained this using the issue of homosexual marriage. By framing the issue within the context of freedom and personal liberty, conservatives were brought to a point where they were willing to change their opinions.

“In one study, we presented liberals and conservatives with one of two messages in support of same-sex marriage. One message emphasized the need for equal rights for same-sex couples. This is the sort of fairness-based message that liberals typically advance for same-sex marriage. It is framed in terms of a value — equality — that research has shown resonates more strongly among liberals than conservatives. The other message was designed to appeal to values of patriotism and group loyalty, which have been shown to resonate more with conservatives. It argued that “same-sex couples are proud and patriotic Americans” who contribute to the American economy and society.”

By assigning moral values the way they have, they can also categorize conservatives as being uncompassionate for their unwillingness to shift their opinions on topics like gun control. In an article entitled I am an AR-15 Owner and I’ve had Enough, Daniel Hayes attempts to sway opinions by stating he had a moral reformation, and the liberty mindset associated with the second amendment needs to be set aside for the safety of our communities. This is the same argument being made with mandatory vaccinations. As noted earlier, people with deeply rooted convictions who are actively engaged are generally not the targets of persuasive communications. Most patriotic Americans who understand the significance of the second amendment will not fall for this tactic. Many people who see gun ownership in terms of hunting and collecting, however, will. They are the target of such an article, and many of them can be persuaded into changing their views on gun ownership. The more of them that comply, the easier it is to label those that don’t as uncaring extremists.

The general, overarching theme in the study of persuasion is that people are not aware of their own cognitive processes to think about what they are doing. The study Shifting Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Using Moral Foundations Theory also incorporated the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion. This model is working from the preconceived bias that people fall into two categories. Those who give a thoughtful analysis based on their own experiences, and the merits of the information before changing their position, and those who do not. This is known as taking the central or peripheral routes of persuasion. The peripheral route suggests that attitude change can occur because people’s ability to process the information is low, and all it takes is a simple stimulus to produce the desired change in attitude. The central route is just the opposite and requires tweaking of the message to meet the moral base and political orientations of the target. According to the book Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, it is necessary to separate the public into those who may have a genuine interest in the message, and those who do not, when it comes to crafting the information meant to shift attitudes and change opinions.

The political elite have an objective that a large portion of the population object to. In our nation, the term “the consent of the governed,” holds a lot of meaning. They can not push their agenda on us without our willingness to comply. Countless hours of research have gone into the study of psychology and persuasion, with the goal of understanding what motivates individuals to change their political opinions. It is more than a simple assumption to say these techniques are being used to push attitudes to the left. The authors of Shifting Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Using Moral Foundations Theory fully admit that the knowledge gained from their study would be useful in helping Democrats win elections. This shows the explicit bias in those conducting the study and what their aim is. Another aspect of their study showing their bias was the lack of an attempt to shift liberal opinions to the right by framing right-wing issues within the moral foundations of the left. They clearly have no interest in doing that as the left-wing worldview is presented as the morally correct position.

The bigger point of this article is the importance of studying and researching the issues. The people conducting these studies believe most of the population is not able to do so. If Americans understood the depth of this research they would likely be infuriated.

“If we are to survive as free men, we must face up to the problem of politically inspired mental coercion, with all its ramifications.”

To learn more about this topic check out my book Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion.

 

Taking the Moral Imperative: Reframing the COVID-19 Narrative

 

One of the most disheartening aspects of the whole COVID-19 pandemic, (if it can be called that) is the lack of action on anyone’s part to call out the lies and contradictions so obvious to those paying attention. Sure, there are doctors, writers, and journalists who are tirelessly exposing such things to a frightened public, hoping to persuade them out of their self-induced hypnosis. I’m talking about the people who have the power to affect policy and perceptions on a larger scale. People were excited, for example, when Rand Paul was grilling Dr. Fauci over gain of function of research. What happened to that? Since that time, the vaccine has been approved by the FDA, and our so-called representatives are sitting in silence, as people across the country are being forced to choose between their jobs or taking the vaccine.

Employer-mandated vaccines were first introduced by The New England Journal of Medicine as early as October 2020. They state employer mandates will avoid the possible “due-process” concerns of imposing legal penalties for noncompliance. They also cite the effectiveness of imposing vaccines as a requirement for children to be enrolled in school. In other words, conscripting employers to play the game has been part of the plan all along.

How can Rand Paul, or anyone else for that matter, sit back and allow this to happen when just a few weeks ago he was arguing in front of God and country that Covid is a manufactured virus? Do we have to accept mandatory vaccines for a disease that was deliberately created to be more contagious? Interestingly enough, the NEJM article also states vaccines should only be mandated if there is a state of emergency and if a system of accountability is in place. As of right now, pharmaceutical companies are immune and employers cannot be held liable for adverse reactions.

From the very beginning, the coronavirus narrative has been rife with inconsistencies, misperceptions, and outright lies. Any one of these on their own should have been enough to put an end to any of the Draconian measures originally taken to flatten the curve. The PCR test is a great example. Not only has it produced a high rate of false positives, the cycle count was deliberately set higher than it should have been to record a high number of cases. In January 2021, the W.H.O. dropped this threshold, which in turn, began to reflect a lower rate of infection. Many commentators suspected this was done to create the illusion of an effective vaccine. The false positives can most likely be attributed to the CDC admitting there was no isolated virus sample from which the testing procedure was developed in the first place.

What does that matter? They created a synthetic sample of something they believed mimicked COVID-19. No big deal, right? People become angry when confronted with this information. “Follow the science,” they say. This admission is in the CDC’s own document detailing the procedures used in developing the testing process. What other science matters pertaining to this issue? In June 2021, the CDC withdrew the emergency authorization requests for the use of PCR testing, and urged the adoption of other testing procedures by the end of the year. Procedures incidentally, that in their own words can differentiate between the Flu and COVID-19. Why?

Another massive lie that should have enraged the whole country, considering what they put us through in 2020, and what they are attempting to do now, is the admission by Dr. Birx that if someone died with COVID-19, the death was attributed to COVID-19. This led to the wildly exaggerated claim that 600,000 people were killed by the disease. It was also admitted by the CDC that hospitals were paid up to fifteen percent more in Medicare funding to label people as COVID-19 positive, and this was responsible for driving up the death count. That doesn’t matter though, does it?

Read the rest at The Liberty Loft 

To learn more about persuasion and behavioral manipulation be sure to check out my latest book! 

Manipulated language to gain vaccine compliance

 The FDA approval of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is the latest example of how language is manipulated based on what they know about public attitudes and perceptions concerning the so-called pandemic. Studies meant to determine which measures need to be taken to gain the desired compliance are always conducted on the public through social media outlets. For instance, the journal, JMIR Public Health and Surveillance ran a study where they infiltrated social media groups to gauge public perceptions concerning facemask use and social distancing. The purpose was to learn how to better frame their message in real-time in response to non-compliant attitudes. This study was so successful they state their intentions to use the same model to “study the perceptions of other interventions by public health authorities.”

One of these important health interventions is, of course, the vaccine. The message coming from the public health sector is that hesitant people can now feel safe in getting the shot because the FDA has issued its final approval. It is true, many people were unsure of the vaccine’s safety because it had not been approved by the FDA. This is an attitude that was likely learned through studies like the one published in the JMIR Journal. I did a Google Scholar search on Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and there is no shortage of studies which purport to identify the reasons people are hesitant. It just so happens, there is one citing people’s concerns about the safety of the shot and its rapid pace of development in a journal called Nature Medicine.

The vaccine has barely been available to the public for eight months, and they already have a model from which to study people’s attitudes and their hesitancy to get it. It is called “the 5C model of the drivers of vaccine hesitancy.”

“The 5C model of the drivers of vaccine hesitancy’, provides five main individual person–level determinants for vaccine hesitancy: confidence, complacency, convenience (or constraints), risk calculation, and collective responsibility. Promoting the uptake of vaccines (particularly those against COVID-19) will require understanding whether people are willing to be vaccinated, the reasons why they are willing or unwilling to do so, and the most trusted sources of information in their decision-making.”

They do these studies, so they know how to target certain people for attitude change. It was found one of the most trusted sources for vaccine information was health care workers. Therefore, they use Doctors to push the message. It is also believed that most people trust Government. This was a key finding in a study which sought to determine how to persuade people to wear facemasks in 2014. Pushing the message that the FDA has approved the vaccine is specifically designed to target those who are unsure based on what they understand about the reasons people hesitate to get vaccinated.

Did the FDA approve the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, or is this just language designed to manipulate the public into believing they did? According to the FDA’s approval letter sent to Pfizer on August 23, 2021, this so-called approval is nothing more than a continuation of the Emergency Use Authorization which they have been continually authorizing since its release. This is easily discernible in reading the letter.

“On December 11, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 for individuals 16 years of age and older pursuant to Section 564 of the Act. FDA reissued the letter of authorization on December 23, 2020, February 25, 2021, May 10, 2021, June 25, 2021, and August 12, 2021.

On August 23, 2021, FDA approved the biologics license application (BLA) submitted by BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH for COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 in individuals 16 years of age and older. On August 23, 2021, having concluded that revising this EUA is appropriate to protect the public health or safety under section 564(g)(2) of the Act, FDA is reissuing the August 12, 2021 letter of authorization in its entirety with revisions incorporated to clarify that the EUA will remain in place for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the previously-authorized indication and uses, and to authorize use of COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) under this EUA for certain uses that are not included in the approved BLA.”

If you read that real close you will see they approved a vaccine called Comirnaty, which is not yet available, to give the illusion that they have given the Pfizer shot full authorization. The Phizer shot is still available under the EUA. This is deliberately misleading because they assume, based on years of research in communications and psychology, that most people will simply comply because the information is too hard to follow. It is believed the words, FDA approval, are that is needed to affect attitude change and gain compliance.

In my last article I mentioned something called THE Heuristic/Sufficiency Principle, which states people rarely take the time to retrieve pertinent information, from their memories, to apply it to a decision they must make now. This essentially means they do not believe you can research anything on your own or come to any sensible conclusions about the information they are giving you. There is also something called the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion.

This is a media model of persuasion which places people into two categories. Those who give a thoughtful analysis based on past experiences, and the merits of the information being presented into consideration before changing their position, and those who do not. This is known as taking the central or peripheral route of persuasion. The peripheral route suggests that attitude change can occur because people’s ability to process the information is low, and all it takes are simple “cues to action” in the messaging to produce the desired effect.  The central route is just the opposite and requires tweaking of the message. It is necessary to separate the public into those who may have a genuine interest in the message, and those who do not when it comes to crafting the information meant to influence behavior. The most important element is how the information presented is perceived to have a direct impact on the individual.

Another point of interest they surely believe you will not notice is in the approval press release. Towards the bottom, in the last paragraph before the section entitled Ongoing Safety Measures, it is admitted by the FDA that the long-term health effects of this vaccine remain unknown. This is because the trials were not conducted in the proper way. Vaccines typically go through a five-to-ten-year testing process. This one was fast-tracked and approved only under Emergency Use Authorization. Which of course, is one of the reasons people were so hesitant to get it. Now that the FDA has approved it, however….

The bigger point of this article was again, to show that there is a concerted effort to use social science models of behavior to gauge public opinion, so they can tweak the message as necessary to gain the desired compliance with their vaccine agenda. Our attitudes and perceptions towards media messaging are always being evaluated, and they learn in real-time, through our participation in social media, what it is we believe and how to change the message. This is also known as propaganda.

Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion

 

Understanding the depth of the problem

Across the nation, there is an awakening, a heightened sense of encroaching government power that was never supposed to be. As if suddenly slapped out of a deep slumber, parents are realizing the schools they trust to educate their children are filling their heads with anti-American ideals, racism, and immoral ideas about human sexuality.

In searching for solutions, many Americans cling to the misperception that voting for a political party, showing itself to be nothing but a slower march toward socialism, will bring the change they seek. Trapped in a misleading cycle of voting for the lesser of two evils, Americans have given their power away to politicians and their empty promises to steer the ship from the impending iceberg of totalitarianism. To come up with real solutions, the problem must be understood in its entirety, and unfortunately, those with the power to subvert the mind have convinced many that only a whacked-out conspiracy theorist thinks there is any problem at all. 

“The average American has no conception of the deep penetration of the Communist conspiracy inside The United Nations.”

The above quote is from the book The Naked Communist. Cleon Skousen wrote it in 1954 as a warning to how successfully the Marxist mindset had already been implanted in the American consciousness. When it comes to the United Nations, there is little doubt that today, most Americans realize they are not on our side.

There is a continuous push to pull the United States out of the U.N. as they are seen as a hostile organization, attempting to wrest our sovereignty and merge us into the coming global government. Americans fail to realize, however, just as Skousen said in ’54, just how entwined we are in the U.N. system. Especially concerning their influence on education. 

Read the rest at The Liberty Loft

 

Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion

Subordinating the minds of those dumbed down by public education

 Salon magazine ran an article claiming that there is no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism, and the right pushes fear of left-wing policies to advance their own agenda. In fact, the author, Cody Cain, goes on to say that Republicans are responsible for pushing the biggest lies to win elections because ninety-nine percent of the population oppose republican governorship.

This article is so filled with lies and deliberate misperceptions it is hard to know where to start. To claim, however, that the right must lie to win elections, or that right wing-policies lead to the most oppressive dictatorships is to ignore the most fundamental truths of leftism. They are godless and without a soul, and as evident by this Salon article, willing to do anything to sway opinion to their side.

The biggest point Cain makes is the typical argument made by the communist left that capitalism is the world’s greatest oppressor, and a great man named Karl Marx came about with an idea of how to eliminate it from the Earth. Not only did Marx seek to destroy Capitalism, he also sought to dethrone God in the minds of men. The conservative right cherishes the freedom of religion and does not come up with deceptive ways to deprive people of their right to be non-believers. In fact, in America, we respect the freedom of religion almost to our own detriment.

The Christian religion, to the communist, represents a system specifically designed to uphold the value system of the so-called bourgeoisie against the proletariat. The very intent of the advent of communism was to set up a dictatorship of the proletariat to strip the wealth from the haves and give it to the have nots. To argue that there is no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism is about as delusional as it gets.

 

Read the rest at The Liberty Loft 

Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion

COVID-19: Corrupted means to a twisted end

 

 

The fear campaign marches on, relentlessly targeting those choosing not to inject themselves with an experimental poison yet to receive FDA approval. It is evident that forced vaccinations and lockdowns are on the horizon, as cities in California and New York have already issued their unconstitutional vaccine decrees. While there is a resistance movement building, millions are mindlessly complying despite the contradicting evidence, showing COVID-19 to be an agenda focused on total control. For example, the CDC and The World Health Organization both admit that PCR testing has produced high rates of false positives. In any sane country, this would have been enough to stop this agenda in its tracks. Unfortunately, very few are paying attention.

Another example shows that the Covid-19 virus itself has never been isolated (see page 40) as the new virus they claim it to be. This is important because the CDC clearly stated, “no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV were available for CDC use at the time the test was developed, and this study conducted.” This explains the false positives as they developed the PCR test using something other than an isolated COVID-19 sample.

While there are many sites which attempt to fact check this claim, this admission comes directly from the CDC concerning the development of the test producing false positives ̶ ̶ ̶ which have been driving the hysteria since the beginning. This should be raising some serious questions as this information is out there for all to see yet, it goes unnoticed by most. If people don’t pay attention and allow themselves to be motivated by fear, there is no reason for them to stop. Compliance equals permission to men seeking dominion over the minds of others.

A nation or a world of people who will not use their intelligence are no better than animals who do not have intelligence. Such people are beasts of burden and steaks on the table by choice and consent.

The average American is blissfully unaware of the differences between right and left-wing ideologies. The right, being driven mostly by Christian morality, is largely ignorant concerning the beliefs which drive leftist thinking. While many people are awakening (about seventy years too late) to the globalist agenda, there has been a prevailing belief that it “would never happen in America.”

The freedom to take responsibility for our lives and liberty, somewhere along the line, turned into the freedom to avoid the consequences of our actions. We stand not knowing what to do as the vaccine agenda is implemented because we have failed to heed the warnings and hold people accountable when we had the freedom to do so. If they pass laws, either on the local or national level mandating vaccines, there will be little that can be done about it. You can resist or refuse to comply, (this writer certainly will) but it will still be the law.

Read the rest on the means and ends morality behind the Covid-19 agenda at The Liberty Loft 

To learn more about behavioral manipulation and Skinner’s science of behavior, check out my new book!

Without a Shot Indeed: Inducing Compliance to Tyranny Through Conditioning and Persuasion

 

Covid-19: The Power of Fear

Covid-19 has shown that fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator of behavioral change and decision-making. Despite experiencing different variations of the flu virus every year, Americans responded to the novel-coronavirus with mass compliance to mask mandates and shutdowns, while anticipating the quick arrival of a magical cure. Through weeks of lockdowns where businesses were destroyed and lives ruined, we were continually told a return to normal would come only when everyone is fully vaccinated.

Human response to fear is something that has been under the microscope for decades. Since at least the 1930s, social scientists have been studying the effects of fear appeals, or fear messages, on human behavior. What is a fear appeal, and to what extent did an understanding of fear-based behavior shape the Covid-19 narrative?

A fear appeal is a carefully contrived message meant to influence attitude and or, behavioral change. An effective message will contain two elements  ̶ ̶ ̶  the threat itself, and the recommended course of action. The appeal should focus on the intended target’s perceptions of how the threat directly affects them. If the message is shaped correctly, it should make them believe there would be dire consequences for not complying with the recommended steps to alleviate the danger. According to the book, Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the 21st Century, developing a fear-based message is an art “which requires an intricate understanding of human behavior.”

One of the most influential studies concerning people’s reactions to media messaging occurred after the War of the World’s radio broadcast in 1938. They conducted this study to examine the panic that ensued as millions of people reacted to the play as if they believed Earth was really being invaded by Martians.

 

Read the rest of this article at The Liberty Loft