Decoding the authority and expertise of those involved in military-style psychological operations

On the morning of April Fool’s Day 2024, the breaking news was Spamouflage: the Chinese government’s social media operation that employs faux Trump supporters to sway US politics (Hsu & Myers, 2024). This has become a familiar headline. After numerous, mostly ignored investigations surrounding the 2016 and 2020 elections detailing “who done it,” the public still seems unaware of how psychological operations affect them. Worse, mainstream journalism is behaving as it did in prior election cycles.  

These weighty challenges beg the question: who could begin to counter the ill-adaptive and biased response of individuals, news corporations, and policymakers? Seeing and saying something involves risk exposure and tricky considerations of prior attempts to speak out. For instance, Dr. Bandy X. Lee exercised a perceived duty to warn by organizing The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President (Frederickson, 2018; Lee, 2017). After the conference, the American Psychiatric Association cited the 1973 Goldwater Rule for professional opinions made without personal examinations by clinicians, resulting in the firing of Dr. Bandy X. Lee from her position at Yale University.

Decoding persuasion and uncovering undue influence is the subject area of media psychology. So as media psychologists, are we not only qualified, but ethically bound to inform the public about military-style psychological operations (PSYOPS) being used against them?

The Citizen’s Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare

Unaware of their own biases and with their guards down, audiences can become politically divided and are often easy targets for malicious actors in social and other media, such as cable news (Kim & Kim, 2024). Experiencing the universal human condition of bias blindness, some unwitting Evangelicals suffer undue influence while trusting their religious leaders (Hassan, 2021; Pronin, 2023) who invite Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to speak or promote his Reawaken America Tour while recruiting for an “Army of God” (Lardner & Smith, 2022), QAnon, or Christian Nationalism. As the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn seems trustworthy to an agreeable audience when presenting himself as a counterterrorism expert in PSYOPS (House.gov, 2015).

Flynn and Cutler (2022) teach MAGA and QAnon audiences about PSYOPS in their book, The Citizen’s Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare: Introduction to 5GW, but not about how PSYOPS may victimize them. Instead, they purport to teach readers how to conduct PSYOPS in their communities in sections such as “how to make people kill people” (Flynn & Cutler, 2022, p. 3-3).

Jim Stewartson, a media innovator of alternate reality games, investigated QAnon and concluded that Flynn was running QAnon. Stewartson believed that Flynn was pretending to be a “deep state” whistleblower named Q, eliciting apophenia by sharing cryptic messages (“Q Drops”) in online forums, harming otherwise ordinary people. Stewartson (2021a) also shared a video of Flynn leading an unsuspecting Evangelical audience into a near-verbatim recital of Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s cult prayer from 1984. Although Flynn filed a complaint for defamation, a court ruled in Flynn v. Stewartson et al. (2024) that sufficient evidence was presented “demonstrating a factual basis” for connecting Flynn to the QAnon movement. This ruling backfired against Flynn’s attempted “Lawfare” to “silence the opposition,” to borrow phrases from his book (Flynn & Cutler, 2022, p. 5-2).

Yet, speaking up can instigate retribution. Like Dr. Lee’s repercussions, Flynn-related threats silenced Stewartson’s film American Mindf*ck: The QAnon Documentary They Don’t Want You to See (2022). Meanwhile, Flynn’s (2024) documentary proclaims “Deliver the Truth. Whatever the Cost.” on a meet-and-greet tour to dozens of American cities.

Persuasion and Source Credibility

Flynn’s current efforts to influence his media and in-person audiences led me to consider the potential dangers of media psychologists ceding source credibility to Flynn and Cutler (2022) as trusted experts on PSYOPS and hybrid warfare. When perceived as “committed to being honest,” audiences may forgive source bias and find speakers trustworthy (Wallace et al., 2020, p. 442). Flynn and other charismatic leaders cultivate many of Whitehead Jr.’s (1968) factors of source credibility, including honesty, “trustworthiness…professionalism (competence)…dynamism, [and] objectivity” (p. 63).

Wallace et al.’s (2020) persuasion research suggests that whether people detect speaker or source bias can be independent of their perceptions of speakers being trustworthy, expert, or likable. Their research confirmed the factors of trustworthiness and expertise, which Whitehead Jr. (1968) called professionalism and competence. Wallace et al. (2020) found that “committed to being honest” was the only condition where source bias significantly correlated with trustworthiness. Illustrating this complexity, The Washington Post (2024) found that 28% of Americans believe Trump’s disinformation and that Fox News viewers are 13% more likely to believe the network is biased but also honest and professional—in other words, believable to Fox’s audience.

To further understand how audiences buy into manipulative media, purchase intentions may be a useful substitution for intentions to vote or act in a prescribed manner under social influence. In Lou and Yuan’s (2019) study of social media influencers, the level of involvement significantly correlated with increasing trust in their posts, purchase intentions, and brand awareness (p. 67). Notably, expertise did not significantly influence the trust in posts, but being perceived as trustworthy and informative had moderately positive effects (Lou & Yuan, 2019).

With self-perceived expertise, Flynn and Cutler (2022) may encourage attempts at community-based PSYOPS among their audiences, who are already more likely to claim “impossible knowledge” (Atir et al., 2015, p. 1295) within the highly involving, influential movements of QAnon, Christian Nationalism, and MAGA. The documentary Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s War on Democracy (Ujlaki & Jones, 2024) showed that many followers of these movements were present at rallies leading up to and including the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Cloaked in the trustworthiness of directed religious fervor, Flynn’s so-called “digital soldiers” (Cohen, 2020) are now being called to literal arms by some in this broader movement (Ujlaki & Jones, 2024). Binding in-group forces increases confirmation bias (Lefebvre et al., 2024), and inauthentic actors gain trust without the requirements of being a professional expert (Lou and Yuan, 2019).

Our Duty

Psychologists strive for neutrality, and yet persuasive media does not. Ethical codes center on preempting harm, but that harm is often the goal of bad actors in the media, using established psychological tactics with political ends. Facing a pile of post-WWII social psychology books about human nature and preventing horrors under the right conditions, I wonder: Are we maintaining academic neutrality at the cost of disobeying Dr. Timothy Snyder’s (2017) first rule of preserving democracy, “do not obey in advance” (p. 17)? Neutrality feels like a frog in boiling water. If Flynn and others establish primary source credibility without criticism, are we being played for pusillanimous fools? Unfortunately, given the insufficiency of media literacy education for many sectors of the population today, many people are vulnerable to psychological manipulation and social harm through escalated and manufacturers divisions in PSYOPS. As media psychologists, I believe it is our duty to address this problem.

References

Atir, S., Rosenzweig, E., & Dunning, D. (2015). When knowledge knows no bounds: Self-perceived expertise predicts claims of impossible knowledge. Psychological Science, 26(8), 1295-1303. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615588195

Cohen,  (2020, July 7). Michael Flynn posts video featuring QAnon slogans. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/michael-flynn-qanon-video/index.html

Flynn, M. T. (Director). (2024). Flynn [Film]. Aquidneck Island Productions, LLC. https://www.flynnmovie.com

Flynn, M. T., & Cutler, B. (2022). The citizen’s guide to fifth generation warfare: Introduction to 5GW. Resilient Patriot, LLC.

Flynn, M. T. v Stewartson, J., Wilson, R., & Meidastouch LLC. (2024, January 30. FL 12^th Circuit Court). Case No. 2023 CA 004264 NC [Document No. 75]. https://secure.sarasotaclerk.com/CaseInfo.aspx

Frederickson, J. (2018). The dangerous case of Donald Trump: 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts assess a president. Psychiatry, 81(4), 408-414. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.2018.1529989

Goldwater rule. (1973). American Psychiatric Association. https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/goldwater-rule

Hassan, S. A. (2021). The BITE model of authoritarian control: Undue influence, thought reform, brainwashing, mind control, trafficking and the law [PhD, Fielding Graduate University].

House.gov. (2015, February 13). Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, USA. House. gov [Website]. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20150213/102931/HHRG-114-AS00-Bio-FlynnUSAretM-20150213.pdf

Hsu, T., & Myers, S. L. (2024, April 1). China’s advancing efforts to influence the US election raise alarms. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/01/business/media/china-online-disinformation-us-election.html

Lardner, R., & Smith, M. R. (2022, October 7). Michael Flynn’s re-awaken roadshow recruits’ army of God’. Frontline. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/michael-flynn-reawaken-america-tour/

Lee, B. X. (2020). Yale lawsuit [Webpage]. https://bandylee.com/yale-lawsuit/

Lee, B. X. (2017). The dangerous case of Donald Trump: 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts assess a president. Thomas Dunne Books.

Lefebvre, G., Deroy, O., & Bahrami, B. (2024). The roots of polarization in the individual reward system. Proc Biol Sci, 291(2017), 20232011. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.2011

Lou, C., & Yuan, S. (2019). Influencer marketing: How message value and credibility affect consumer trust of branded content on social media. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19(1), 58-73. doi: 10.1080/15252019.2018.1533501

Kim, Y., & Kim, Y. (2024). How affective polarization deepens the partisan divide in US cable news use: Exploring the mediating role of partisans’ bias blind spots in media credibility judgment. Journal of Media Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000414

Pronin, E., & Hazel, L. (2023). Humans’ bias blind spot and its societal significance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(5), 402-409. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214231178745

Stewartson, J., Cuda, H., Fidel, J., & Connner, S. [radicalizedpod]. (2024) Radicalized: Truth Survives Podcast [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/H5yt93p37dU?si=9aGeY4-XAa_rTJgb

Snyder, T. (2017). On tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century. Tim Duggan Books.

Stewartson, J. [@jimstewartson]. (2021a, September 17). Flynn wraps up by talking about “Seven Rays” which appears to be reference to theosophy and the Ascended Masters of the “I AM” cult. [X post]. X. https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1438916545497878531

Stewartson, J. [@jimstewartson]. (2021b, September 21). This tweet has created a problem for theocratic fascist Mike Flynn. His reference to “Seven Rays” which comes from occultists like Helena Blavatsky and Alice Bailey has angered dominionist antisemites like Rick Wiles. Rick saw my video and compares Mike Flynn to Satan. [X post]. X. https://x.com/jimstewartson/status/1440431013541277705

Stewartson, J. [@jimstewartson]. (2022, August 3). American mindf*ck: The QAnon documentary they don’t want you to see [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/736346676

Ujlaki, S., & Jones, C. (Directors). (2024). Bad faith [Film]. Panarea Productions.

Wallace, L. E., Wegener, D. T., & Petty, R. E. (2020). When sources honestly provide their biased opinion: Bias as a distinct source perception with independent effects on credibility and persuasion. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(3), 439-453. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219858654

Washington Post staff. (2024, April 8). March 7-12, 2024, Washington Post-Schar School fact checker poll. Washington Post. https://wapo.st/43WkKhG

Whitehead Jr, J. L. (1968). Factors of source credibility. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 54(1), 59-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335636809382870