usually with brain washing they find people that are down and depressed and keep on putting their views in the persons head and lift their spirits, making the person feel great. Since this person made them feel wonderful there is no way that this whatever it is thats doing the brain washing could do anything wrong. If your referring to suicide bombers and terrorists though its more about "brother hood" for lack of a better term. I watched a show a while back and their were some similar characteristics with most of them. 1st they were out of the country they were born in when they joined the terrorist groups, secondly they were all second generation immigrants (meaning there parents immigrated to the USA for ex and they were born here but they are still caught somewhere in the middle, they don't know wither they belong with the Americans or with their own culture). And third is that the group suicide bombers is usually very close, like the London bombers when the 1st two blew themselves up...the third one must not have trusted them completely and ended up calling one of the other guys and the guy didn't answer and the third guy ended up blowing himself up because the other two did. But there are also many more influences out there! Sorry for rambling on I will stop now!

From government lies relayed through the controlled media ...

This may be a bit much to reveal on AB, but when I was young my father used to lock me in my room and shout from the hall that I was nothing, fat, piece of sh**, etc....numerous times it'd be at least a day locked in my room hearing these rants periodically....Over a course of time the consistency of cut downs developed into a huge self esteem problem and depression all through my childhood. I was brainwashed into believing the things that he said....Took many years of therapy, a very loving mother (they were divorced when this happened, I'd spend a month with my father, then a month with my mother), and what I believe to be God to get me out of this rut....

Brainwashing takes place within families too. In order to fulfill their own objectives, these people make the other person believe there is something personal in it for them. It could be something tangible or something merely emotional. It is control of the mind. These people have thick skins and are relentless. They play games, if one card does not work, they will bring out the other and so on until they succeed.

Wikipedia writes:Brainwashing, also known as thought reform or re-education, is defined by Dorland's Medical Dictionary as "any systematic effort aimed at instilling certain attitudes and beliefs in a person against his will, usually beliefs in conflict with his prior beliefs and knowledge." If you expose someone to a particular thought process continually for a period of time, with no access to contrary ideas, after a while the suggestions begin to take on logic. AFter a considerable time, the subject may be incapable, without a lot of help (called de-programming) of making a decision contrary to that of the programmer. If they are de-programmed, sometimes all it takes is a phone call to turn them right round. I have seen this myself with certain well-known cults, so I know it happens.

Brainwaswhing isn't ALWAYS a bad thing, military training could be considered brain washing. It's essential for the chain of command to be effective, the need for people to obey any given command without question or delay.

If you're really interested in this, there is a book written by a professional deprogrammer, _Combatting Cult Mind Control_ by Steve Hassan (ISBN 978-0892813117). It describes mind control tactics using the BITE model (Behaviour control - Information control - Thought control - Emotion control) and cognitive dissonance. In a healthy individual, behavior, thought and emotion will be in harmony ("I think it is wrong to kill; I have negative emotions about killing; I don't kill."); if one of these is changed (behavior is the easiest to change involuntarily), a "dissonance" is created, and the other two will move to be in harmony with the one that was changed. (Off topic, there are several humorous Dilbert strips about cognitive dissonance in a corporate environment.) _Combatting Cult Mind Control_ also lists ways to resist/deprogram from these tactics. [I am in no way affiliated with Steve Hassan, I just found this book to be a very good reference.]

ask the grocery stores