The Psychology of Gaslighting, Bullying, Cults, and Coercion
3/31/20261 hr 17 min
What do gaslighting, bullying, cults, and coercion have in common? In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with Jennifer Fraser about the psychology and neuroscience of manipulation, the recurring structure of abuse cultures, and the way authority can distort perception. Their discussion looks at fear, humiliation, retaliation, favoritism, empathy deficits, and the warning signs that distinguish legitimate leadership from coercive control across schools, workplaces, sports, relationships, and institutions.
Jennifer Fraser is the author of four books and an international expert on bullying and abuse. Her latest book is The Gaslit Brain: Protect Your Brain from the Lies of Bullying, Gaslighting, and Institutional Complicity.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMichael Shermer· Host0:00
So what is gaslighting? Take us through that movie since you opened your book with that. [laughs] It's a great story. And then, uh, you know, h- where does it happen at work, in school, and wherever?
Jennifer Fraser· Guest0:08
So gaslighting back in the day when it entered into popular consciousness in the '40s and '50s was in this, this Hollywood movie.
Michael Shermer· Host0:15
How do you think about, you know, abuse, uh, gaslighting in religion?
Jennifer Fraser· Guest0:19
Had been studying abuse culture and how it works, and, you know, my answer to that would be abuse culture is so boring. It's the most textbook thing on the planet. It has a playbook. It doesn't matter if it's a church, an institution, a government, a dictatorship, a family, a school, it's the same. Sports, it's the same. What about churches? I would say, what about them? It's the same pattern. If they put you into a brain scan, and they showed you pictures of Harvey Weinstein and Sandusky and Epstein doing the kinds of things that they did, and they showed you those pictures, your affective empathy neural network would go on fire. It would light up. It would not be able to tolerate what you're seeing. It would make you feel horrendous. Let's now put Ghislaine Maxwell into the same fMRI scanner. Let's show her exactly the same pictures that we showed you. And you know what you'd see? You would see nothing light up in the affective empathy neural network. She doesn't feel the pain of the victims. So there's six different ways in which we could train our brains to be much more adept at picking out who is the manipulator, who's the liar.
Unknown speaker1:27
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