Psychological Impact

of Loudspeaker
Broadcasting against
North Korea
2015. 9. 11. | CO 15-24

Park Juhwa
(Research Fellow, Unification Policy Studies Division)

The tension between South and North Korea triggered by North Koreas
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 regimes weak points, they have hardly come
up with any analysis on why the regime reacted so sensitively to
loudspeaker broadcasting.

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CO 15-24

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 Koreas 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 Koreas 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 militarys
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 ones 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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CO 15-24

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 Gilberts 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: Lets 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 Pavlovs 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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CO 15-24

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 Girls Generations 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
Koreas broadcasting? It is possible that North Korean soldiers and residents may
be surprised by South Koreas 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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CO 15-24

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 Maslows 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 comparison7) 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 Koreas 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).

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