psychological impact of loudspeaker broadcasting against north korea

2015. 9. 11. | CO 15-24

1217, Banpo-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06578, Korea Tel. 82-2-2023-8000 l 82-2-2023-8212 www.kinu.or.kr

Park Juhwa

(Research Fellow, Unification Policy Studies Division)

The tension between South and North Korea triggered by North Korea’s

provocation using wooden-box mines came to an end through the August

25 agreement between the two Koreas. “Loudspeaker broadcasting

against North Korea” was one of the phrases that popped up most

frequently throughout the process of crisis, increased tension, dialogue

and agreement. North Korea almost reacted neurotically to loudspeaker

broadcasting according to some experts, while it unprecedentedly

condemned such an act as a threat to the North Korean regime per se,

in the presence of foreign correspondents and foreign employees residing

in North Korea. Confirming the destructive impact of loudspeaker

broadcasting on North Korea is one of the biggest gains from the recent

incident. While experts have agreed that loudspeaker broadcasting against

North Korea is one of the regime’s weak points, they have hardly come

up with any analysis on why the regime reacted so sensitively to

loudspeaker broadcasting.

Psychological Impactof Loudspeaker

Broadcasting againstNorth Korea

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It could be generally explained that criticism per se is not allowed against Kim

Jong-un, the Supreme Dignity in North Korea. That is, while criticism against Kim

Jong-un - North Korea’s sanctuary – is prohibited, it must never be unveiled to

North Korean soldiers and residents. Such a political analysis shows that

loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea has more value as a means to threat

the regime legitimacy of North Korea’s top officials than as a means to change the

mind of North Korean soldiers and residents. Another explanation is based on the

fact that North Korean soldiers on the frontline are not from good background and

that the food security issue on the frontline is getting worse, indicating that the

information on the reality of the North Korean regime and on freedom and prosperity

enjoyed in South Korea has power to easily undermine North Korean military’s

morale or raise skepticism on the North Korean regime.

Most of explanations or analyses have one common assumption – loudspeaker

broadcasting against North Korea changes the attitude and behavior of its soldiers

and residents. That is, North Korean soldiers and residents are encouraged to have

a positive attitude towards South Korea and a negative one towards North Korea.

At least two questions need to be answered to validate such a change in the attitude:

Firstly, will North Korean soldiers and residents accept as true the information

provided by loudspeaker broadcasting who have been taught by brainwashing

education to believe that everything the South Korean government says is false?

Loudspeaker broadcasting will be of no use unless brainwashed North Korean

soldiers and residents regard loudspeaker broadcasting as a genuine source of

information. Secondly, what kind of psychological transformation process will be

involved through which the attitude of North Korean soldiers and residents changes?

A change in one’s attitude and behavior takes place in the psychological change

process. In other words, there will be a limit to understanding the effects of

loudspeaker broadcasting without the understanding of psychological change.

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This paper looks into possible answers to the above two questions based on the

outcome of psychological research. To begin with, it seeks a possible answer to

the first question through Daniel Gilbert’s source monitoring failure phenomenon.

As for the second question, the psychological process of changing the attitude and

behavior is outlined on the basis of classical conditioning and the cognitive

dissonance theory. This paper also looks at the emotional effects of loudspeaker

broadcasting against North Korea.

Source Monitoring Failure

According to Descartes1), people can ignore information from wrong sources. If

his insight into human beings is right, loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea

has no impact. It is because North Korean soldiers will not believe a series of lies

broadcast by South Korea. On the other hand, Spinoza2)’s argument is that people

sort out false information after they accept all information as true and this process

is full of flaws. Assuming that it is a convincing argument, even if North Korean

soldiers believe the information broadcast by South Korea is false, they cannot

completely get it out of their head.

Renowned socio-cultural psychologist Daniel Gilbert3) tested the above two

arguments empirically. His research can be reconstructed as follows: Let’s suppose

there is a person named John. Group A read the sentence “John is a good person.”

Group B, on the other hand, read the sentences “John is a good person. John is

1) Rene Descartes, Valentine Rodger Miller and Reese P. Miller, Principles of Philosophy, vol. 24

(Springer Science & Business Media, 1984)

2) Baruch de Spinoza, ed. Seymour Feldman, tr. Samuel Shirley, The Ethics and Selected Letters

(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1982)

3) Daniel T. Gilbert, Douglas S. Krull and Patrick S. Malone, “Unbelieving the Unbelievable:

Some Problems in the Rejection of False Information,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 59, no. 4 (1990), p. 60; Daniel T. Gilbert, Romin W. Tafarodi and Patrick S.

Malone, “You Can't not Believe Everything You Read." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 65, no. 2 (1993), p. 221.

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a gambling addict. However, it is a total lie that John is a gambling addict.” Finally,

Group C read the sentences “John is a good person. John engages in a number

of voluntary activities. However, it is a total lie that John engages in a number of

voluntary activities.” The three groups were asked to assess what John is like after

reading the sentences given to each of them.

If people are capable of rejecting lies, all three groups have only read the sentence

“John is a good person,” and therefore the assessment by these three groups of

John should be the same. However, Group C provided with a positive lie gave the

best credit while Group B given a negative lie came up with the worst assessment.

This shows that people still can be affected by the given information even if they

clearly know what they have read or heard is not true.

Going back to loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea, the information on

the reality of North Korea and on the South Korean society broadcast by South

Korea – a habitual liar – is false, according to the judgment by most of North

Korean soldiers and residents. In the light of the research by Daniel Gilbert, even

if the information broadcast by South Korea is believed to be false, it can still

encourage negative views on the North Korean regime and positive views on the

South Korean society.

Classical Conditioning

To explain the process through which loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea

affects the psychological state of North Korean soldiers and residents, classical

conditioning well-known as Pavlov’s dog can be taken as one example. An

advertisement that associates a product and a positive response elicited through

the use of a Baby, Beast, and Beauty (a.k.a., 3Bs) presented with the product is

the most typical way of classical conditioning4).

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Loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea includes music that can be enjoyed

by soldiers of a new generation. Music causes human beings a physiological and

psychological change. The research team led by Canadian neuropsychologist Robert

Zatorre reported that joyful music boosts the secretion of neurotransmitters called

dopamine associated with pleasure, joy and addiction5). The fact that music mediates

the secretion of neurotransmitters implies that the effect of music is spontaneous

and cannot be rejected. Based on the conjecture, it can be predicted that the

secretion of dopamine will increase in the brain of North Korean soldiers who listen

to IU, Big Bang and Girl’s Generation’s music. Positive feelings caused by this kind

of music will spontaneously be associated with a positive response to loudspeaker

broadcasting. Eventually, the positive response could be generalized to that towards

the South Korean society.

Likewise, the formation of trust in the South Korean society can be expected. What

do North Korean soldiers think about the accurate weather forecast by South

Korea’s broadcasting? It is possible that North Korean soldiers and residents may

be surprised by South Korea’s advanced science and technology based on the

accurate weather forecast. However, the experience with the accurate weather

forecast also leads to the experience with the reliability of loudspeaker broadcasting

against North Korea. That is, people will believe that it will rain once the weather

forecast expects rain. Repetitive experience with reliability will result in widespread

(contagious) reliability. Furthermore, it can lead to trust not only in the weather

forecast but also in other information, and eventually to trust in the entire South

Korean society.

4) Jan De Houwer, Sarah Thomas and Frank Baeyens, “Association Learning of Likes and

Dislikes: A Review of 25 Years of Research on Human Evaluative Conditioning,” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 127, no. 6, (2001), p. 853.

5) Valorie N. Salimpoor, Mitchel Benovoy, Kevin Larcher, Alain Dagher and Robert J. Zatorre,

“Anatomically Distinct Dopamine Release during Anticipation and Experience of Peak Emotion

to Music,” Nature Neuroscience, vol. 14, no. 2 (2011), pp. 257~262.

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Cognitive Dissonance

What will come to his mind if a North Korean soldier with lifelong hostility to South

Korea sees himself collect the laundry as he hears the rainfall forecast through

loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea? How could a North Korean soldier

possibly justify himself humming a song of South Korea, the target to be defeated?

It may be quite embarrassing, given that they were not forced to do it but did it

voluntarily.

The attitude of the said two soldiers contradicts with their behavior6). They

experience dissonance between their hostile attitude towards the South Korean

society and their friendly behaviors towards it. People do not like contradiction and

hate ambiguity. Human beings try to have consistency somehow by resolving

inconsistency.

Researches on social psychology suggest that most of people confronted with a

dissonant situation maintain consistency by changing the attitude rather than the

behavior. In this context, North Korean soldiers resolve a dissonant situation by

means of “I thought I hated the South Korean government, but my behavior shows

that I did not hate it as much as I thought I would, and that I actually have a good

feeling about it.” In other words, they are able to maintain consistency in their

attitude and behavior by having a positive attitude towards South Korea.

Loudspeaker broadcasting against North Korea can make North Korean soldiers

and residents have a positive attitude towards the South Korean society and a

negative attitude towards the North Korean society through discordance between

attitude and behavior.

6) Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, vol. 2 (Stanford University Press, 1962).

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Motivation and Emotion

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, human beings have a variety of

motivation and behave to fulfill the unsatisfied needs. The most primitive motivation

is physiological needs such as hunger. It is known that North Korean soldiers and

residents suffer a severe food shortage. That means their physiological needs are

not met. Loudspeaker broadcasting has an impact to highlight the deficiency of such

physiological needs.

On the one hand, physiological needs can be met by means of theft or defection

while they can just conform themselves to an environment on the other hand.

Looking around, they will see everyone around also suffer from hunger. One may

accept the reality that is not quite satisfactory, with a crowd of people just like

him/her around. However, “social comparison”7) occurs where loudspeaker

broadcasting intervenes by announcing that not everyone is hungry. Without the

belief that all North Koreans suffer the same pain, the physiological needs currently

unsatisfied will only stand out more.

Loudspeaker broadcasting itself can function as a strong eye-opener for North

Korean residents in an emotional way. Theoretically, loudspeaker broadcasting can

reach the residents in Kaesong, approximately 10 km north of the Military

Demarcation Line. Putting ourselves in their shoes, what could Seoul citizens’

reaction be, when we hear North Korea’s propaganda broadcasting against South

Korea every day? Apart from what we hear, fear will sweep over us and our anger

be directed at the South Korean government that does not stop it.

7) Arie W. Kruglanski and Ofra Mayseless, “Classic and Current Social Comparison Research:

Expanding the Perspective,” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 108, no. 2 (1990), pp. 195~209.

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According to social cognitive psychologist Jennifer Lerner, emotions implicitly

suggest a behavior guideline for the purpose of tackling the pending issues8). One

among those emotions is fear and it brings forth a guideline that suggests the

handling of issues by a peaceful/pacificatory means. Thus, it indicates that North

Korean residents feared by loudspeaker broadcasting will be less willing to stand

against South Korea and that their demand for a peaceful means will accordingly

increase. On the other hand, anger implicitly induces behaviors that aim to address

the pending issues by a violent/antagonistic means. It is effective in increasing

chances of hostile behaviors against the North Korean regime9).

Future Challenges and Prospects of Loudspeaker Broadcasting

The psychological impacts of loudspeaker broadcasting on North Korean soldiers

and residents have been explored so far. Specifically, this paper begins with the

two questions in relation to loudspeaker broadcasting. The first question relates

to a possibility of North Korean soldiers and residents judging the information

provided by loudspeaker broadcasting as false. If the question is psychologically

answered, even if North Korean soldiers and residents may reckon that the

information from loudspeaker broadcasting is false, the information actually causes

a psychological change. It is because a human being is not rational enough to make

use of information by telling truth from falsehood. The second question is about

how the information provided by loudspeaker broadcasting induces a change in the

attitude and behavior. This paper looks at the positive physiological reaction and

8) Jennifer S. Lerner and Dacher Keltner, “Fear, Anger, and risk,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 81, no. 1 (2001), pp. 146~159; Jennifer S. Lerner, Deborah A. Small

and George Loewenstein, “Heart Strings and Purse Strings Carryover Effects of Emotions on

Economic Decisions,” Psychological Science, vol. 15, no. 5 (2004), pp. 337~341.

9) Those who have anger or fear over the September 11 terror attack provided different inputs

on a policy towards the Islamic State. Jennifer S. Lerner, Roxana M. Gonzalez, Deborah A.

Small and Baruch Fischhoff, “Effects of Fear and Anger on Perceived Risks of Terrorism a

National Field Experiment,” Psychological Science, vol. 14, no. 2 (2003), pp. 144~150.

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repetitive pattern of propaganda broadcasting, which relate to a change in the

attitude through classical conditioning and cognitive dissonance based upon

discordance between behavior and attitude. Lastly, this paper touches on the role

of emotions. While emotions present an implicit behavior guideline required to deal

with issues, fear in particular weakens the will to fight and forms an implicit attitude

in pursuit of seeking a peaceful solution.

The common ground of the psychological transformation process discussed so far

builds on the fact that psychological changes take place unconsciously. Changes

happen in an imperceptible and irresistible way. Perhaps, this is the strongest impact

loudspeaker broadcasting has.

One point to be made is that these effects will kick in as a form of mere changes

in behaviors like checking the weather to see whether the rainfall forecast is correct,

humming a song, etc. This suggests the information easy to check and the

information that can bring about a change in behaviors work better than clear

political criticism against inconsistency and irrationality in the North Korean regime,

while hook songs10) easy to hum have a bigger impact than songs evoking positive

emotions do.

Lastly, side effects of loudspeaker broadcasting should also be considered. For

example, if North Korean residents encountering the information provided by

loudspeaker broadcasting have anger rather than fear, it may only intensify their

hostility to South Korea. Social cognitive psychologist Lerner argues that fear

emerges where there is no clear cause of a circumstance, while anger comes along

with the understanding of the cause of a circumstance. In other words, once North

Korean soldiers and residents are aware that the psychological confusion is caused

10) A song whose lyrics is repeated throughout the song (the National Institute of the Korean

Language)

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by loudspeaker broadcasting, they may have anger, rather than fear, over South

Korea and prefer a violent solution induced by the emotion of anger.

In addition, preparations should be in place for the possibility of loudspeaker

broadcasting not being too effective. Almost all the media and analyses suggest

the utility of loudspeaker broadcasting as an effective asymmetrical strategic means.

“Confirmation bias” is one of the most robust errors in the decision-making process

identified by cognitive psychology, indicating that people pay attention only to the

evidences that support their hypotheses. It should not be forgotten that getting ready

for a situation where what I think is wrong is part of the crisis management. Security

is not a variable but a constant when it comes to Unification. ⓒKINU 2015

※ The views expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author and are not to be construed as representing those of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU).

psychological impact of loudspeaker broadcasting against north korea

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