Coercive Continuum
Coercive persuasion or "thought reform" is understood as a coordinated system of coercive influence and behavior control designed to deceptively manipulate individuals, in the interest of the originators of the program. Thought reform is regarded as situational adaptive belief change and thought reform programs have been distinguished from other efforts in an overlapping continuum of social influence based on the descriptions of the social structure of thought reforming environments. Elements that distinguish from other socialization schemes to promote compliance are the interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self, the use of an organized peer group and interpersonal pressure to promote conformity as well as the manipulation of the totality of the subject's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified.
Some of the social control characteristics of reform programs are typically control of communication, emotional and behavioral manipulation; conformity to behavior derived from doctrine; demands for confession; unconditional agreement to ideology, manipulation of language into clichés; reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine and inferiority of those not sharing the ideology.
The essential strategy used by such programs is to systematically select sequence and coordinate numerous coercive persuasion tactics continuously over extended periods of time. Thought reform programs are sophisticated and subtle, creating a psychological attachment that is far more powerful than methods of influence that use only threat. Successful psychological destabilization induces a negative shift in global self evaluations and increases uncertainty about one's values and position. It thereby reduces resistance to demands for compliance while increasing suggestibility. Coercive persuasion is applied in sequential phases of Solve et Coagula. In a three phase model this destabilization period is followed by a phase of "change" leading to a stage of "re-form" consolidation and reinforcement of thought.
Influence procedures commonly used during modern police interrogation can inadvertently manipulate innocent persons' beliefs about their own innocence and, thereby, cause them falsely to confess. Confessions resulting from successfully applying sequential patterns and phases of thought reform are classified as coerced internalized false confessions. The use of certain commonly employed interrogation procedures and a "suspect" with a minimum of psychological vulnerability is all it needs to elicit a temporarily believed false confession.