It happened when I was eight. I was in the living room, reading a storybook (Rapunzel, if I’m not mistaken) when my father entered the room. He looked furious, and he was holding a cane.

I’ve learned this formula since I’m 4…

Parent looking mad + a cane in hand = I’m going suffer some kind of injury, either on my palm or my butts, for whatever I’ve done which pissed them off.

So I got very scared. I wanted to apologize but the problem was, I had no idea what I’ve done wrong. My father got nearer and nearer and still my mind remained blank.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out the words before he could start whacking me, even though I still don’t know what mistake I’ve committed. “I won’t do it again.”

When coerced, pressured or persuaded, people can confess to anything. Remember the Gypsy girl, Esmeralda, in Hunchback of Notre Dame? She had, against her will, falsely confessed to the murder of her lover after she was tortured by tightening a pair of heavy metal shoes on her feet, which was so painful that she eventually fainted.

Of course, there are also people who voluntarily make false confessions for the sake of notoriety, or to protect the real culprit, but today I would like to talk a little about false confessions which are involuntarily made. I would like to focus on the interrogation techniques used by the Chinese Communists, which, according to Hinkle and Wolff, “can force men to confess to crimes which they have not committed, and to believe in the truth of their confessions and express sympathy and gratitude towards those who have imprisoned them.”

  It was the latter part of the statement which aroused my curiosity. I understand that there’s plenty kinds of torture which can make a person confess to almost everything, but how on Earth can these interrogators make people believe in the false confessions they made?

  According to Schein, Schneier and Barker, the Communists achieved this by influencing people’s beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviour by psychological manipulation. This process requires three stages:

1. “Unfreezing” – where the forces pushing people towards confessing are strengthened (saying things likes “look, the evidence is adverse to you. It is better for you to confess.”)but at the same time the forces maintaining resistance are weakened (emotional distress, deprivation of sleep etc). The former is achieved via persuasion whereas the latter is achieved via coercion. During this stage, the subjects are usually placed in a situation where there is no escape, causing the subjects to feel hopeless and start to believe that the only means to escape is to confess.

2. “Changing” – This occurs after the prisoners’ needs and motives are changed and they now have a clear idea as to the new direction they should take. In my “cane-in-father’s-hand” example, this would have occured when my father got nearer to me. That’s when my motive is changed from “I am innocent therefore I should not confess” to “I’ll say anything just to avoid being caned.”

3. “Refreezing” – This is where new information or belief is being integrated into the prisoner’s self-concept and value system. Usually there will be some form of incentive for the prisoner to confess, such as a less severe sentencing.

  Usually, such influences would not be permanent. Once the prisoner is removed from the social support system which reinforces the attitude change, they will usually revert to their original beliefs.

  Anyway, just a little evil idea that came across my mind all of a sudden: to those with a partner, maybe you can use the unfreezing-changing-refreezing process on your partner to get them to confess to some kind of mistake just so they feel guilty and start to treat you better… Hey, I’m not making any suggestions, alright? I’m just sharing my thoughts, and there’s a distinction between sharing and suggesting *wink*