Psychological Principles Used By The Ku Klux Klan To Control And Manipulate People

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded in 1865 and by 1870 the Ku Klux Klan extended into nearly every southern state In America. This was the foundation of making a white supremacist hate group that only believed in furthering a white America and to do that they would have to wipe out any other race. The first form of murder and harm they caused was in 1860, but was fortunately suppressed in 1872. In 1974, David Duke became the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and used speech and television to spread word of the cult. He aimed at the target audience of people that only wanted a white America, people who have had problems with other races and most importantly people that have had bad experiences with African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan had two different ways of controlling and manipulating people into joining their cult. The first technique they used was speech. Utilising advertising to their advantage they promoted their head leader grand wizard David Duke by proclaiming to people that a white America is a better America and targeted two different types of audiences:

1. People that have had bad experiences with other races.
2. People that were raised to or not encouraged to like other races.

The second technique involved Cross burnings. These burnings were significant because they just didn’t advertise the cult, but also demonstrated that the KKK were powerful and had the ability to do illegal stuff without getting punished. Within the cult there are multiple conformist behaviours:

1. Attending and supporting in cross burnings.
2. Hating everyone who is not a white American.
3. Demonstrating disgust every time they see someone who isn’t a white American.

The reason these were followed is because the amount of fear the cult supplied to keep them in check especially since they are in America, the number of guns that the population has is objectionable and this meant anyone could just rock up to your door and shoot you. Conformity worked in the cult by one person sharing a bad experience with another. For example, if a person had a bad experience with an African American and then spread this to his friends who then saw advertisements for the Ku Klux Klan they may be influenced to join up. It was then, once they joined that the conformity of fear picked up and then they became scared to leave and this was highly likely due to the amount of guns in America. Implying that if you wanted to leave the cult you were putting your life on the line because the cult might think that you believe that it is ok for there not to be a white America and this would tempt them to hurt you and your family, so it’s only human instinct to act it out. Another way that conformity makes people want to join the Ku Klux Klan is peer pressure. This is because if your friends are in the Ku Klux Klan and they recommend you to join you are most likely to become a member because you trust them. It is only when you want to leave you can’t because you don’t want to abandon your friends and you don’t want them to think that they are feeling abandoned by you.

There are 2 major obedient behaviours within the cult:

1. You have to think that white America is the only America.
2. You must have hate towards other races.

The reason they have to do this is to show the cult that they are worth being apart of the clan and if you don’t obey those hate rules then you could be considered not playing in part of a clan resulting in being beat up or threatened. The Ku Klux Klan uses persuasion as one of their key factors into getting cult members. They released a couple advertisements to live television giving insight into what their cult is and why a white America is better then having other races other than white America in America. There are three different psychological principles that support claims that are made in this investigation one of the three are conformity.

1. Conformity means to do as the rules, standards or law say within the KKK even know what they were doing was wrong in their time there was no law against it eventually they did break the law by killing civilians and the illegal use of guns. They also had different standards compared to normal ones most people from the 1800 to the 2000 showed no interest in making friends with different coloured people or different races accept for their own, but the difference with their social norm is that they didn’t want them in the country even to go as far as kidnapping and killing. The Ku Klux Klan had a minor set of rules but it was to pretty much hate anyone that isn’t a born white American or to hate someone that likes other races.
2. The second psychological principal is obedience, when you obey someone with more power then you. Obedience is used in the cult but only when the Grand Wizard is talking to his followers this would be when he is asking to do a cross burning or to do a protest in the street etc. … there is also one more thing that obedience contributes in and that is the law and this is why the Ku Klux Klan got in so much trouble through-out history the law plays a big part in the Ku Klux Klan because if they do not follow it a lot of their followers will be arrested and then eventually they would not have any.
3. The last psychological principle is attitude change through persuasion this is the effects of the presence of actions of other either real or imagined. Throughout history they have also been able to use persuasion to get new cult members

The Ku Klux Klan blamed immigrants for problems that many Americans identified as the major problems of their time:

• immigration
• political corruption
• urban crime

It was through a sophisticated public relations operation, they successfully created an impression that the entire nation was under attack and in doing so presented their members not as extremists, but as American patriots.