APA Task Force On Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control | APA Task Force Deceptive Indirect Techniques Persuasion Control

The APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC) formed at the request of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1983. The APA asked Margaret Singer, one of the leading proponents of theories of coercive persuasion, to chair a task force to:

1. Describe the deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control that may limit freedom and adversely affect individuals, families, and society.
2. Review the data base in the field.
3. Define the implications of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control for consumers of psychological services.
4. Examine the ethical, educational, and social implications of this problem.

Before the task force had submitted its final report, the APA submitted an amicus curiae brief (10 February 1987) in a case pending before the California Supreme Court. The case involved issues of brainwashing and coercive persuasion. The brief stated that Singer's hypotheses "were uninformed speculations based on skewed data." The APA subsequently withdrew from the brief, portraying its participation as premature in that DIMPAC had not yet submitted its report. (Scholars who had co-signed the brief did not withdraw.)

The task force completed its final report in November 1986. In May 1987 the APA Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected the DIMPAC final report; stating that the report "lack the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur", and also stating that the BSERP did "not believe that we have sufficient information available to guide us in taking a position on this issue". The BSERP board requested that the task-force members not distribute or publicize the report without indicating that the Board found the report unacceptable, and cautioned the members of the task force against using their past appointment to it "to imply BSERP or APA support or approval of the positions advocated in the report".

Singer and her professional associate sociologist Richard Ofshe subsequently sued the APA in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy" and lost in 1994. Subsequently, judges did not accept Singer as an expert witness in cases alleging brainwashing and mind control.

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