Emotional conditioning is used quite often not only in forums, but also in the media. It is a behaviorist approach in which a person is trained to react emotionally to certain stimuli, whether verbal, written, or visual. Such stimuli may be words, phrases, expressions, font color, font type (bold or overly prominent), images, specific details or elements within images, character, composition, and so on. In practice, the stimulus can be anything. It represents an “anchor” in NLP terminology. This methodology has been transferred from behaviorism and NLP into the online environment, most often with less-than-benign intentions. In the practice of trolls in online forums and boards, this methodology is used primarily to provoke, disturb, and create tension, and it resembles the logic of the so-called “Chinese water torture”—the methodical presentation of the same stimulus, or of associatively related stimuli of different kinds, with the aim of achieving maximum effect. The methodology works as follows:

First, let us imagine an online forum in which someone is to be “anchored.” To begin with, an appropriate stimulus must be devised, which will later become the anchor. It should not be too familiar or commonly used, because then it will not be unique. Nor should it be completely extravagant, because then its frequent use would be hard to justify. For example, the stimulus could be the name of a company or product. In our example, let it be “Durex.” The name is popular and can easily be inserted into all kinds of contexts in posts. In addition, being a condom brand, it implies a certain negative or awkward association. To attract attention, the stimulus (the future anchor) may be written in capital letters as an accent. Thus, the “candidate-anchor” becomes DUREX.

The next step is to create a connection between the individual and the future anchor. This is done by emphasizing the anchor in a context that is emotionally charged for the individual in question. Such a context may be a particular topic under discussion to which the individual is sensitive, or a moment when they are experiencing emotions—for example, being irritated by someone in the chat. At that point, the anchor is introduced. In our example, this could happen when a participant in the current discussion mentions the word DUREX in a post, ideally in a post that provokes emotions in the target (the individual being “targeted”). Emotions can be provoked in many ways, for example through the method of identification, which will be discussed later. For the purposes of this example, however, we will mention it here as well.

Let us assume that the individual being influenced has some kind of complex, for instance related to being overweight. Then the person who is to introduce the anchor might post the following message, ostensibly in a public chat with another colleague:

Today, while I was popping out to get some DUREX, I saw this fat guy whose belly was sticking out like a sack in front of him, so much so that passersby were turning around in amazement, and two girls couldn’t hold back their laughter. I’m telling you, man, why don’t such losers just shoot themselves and spare everyone the misery, I don’t know. Right there, near the shop where I was going for DUREX, he turned down a side street and disappeared from view… Then I got my DUREX.

In the above example, the aim is for the target to subconsciously identify with the described character, while at the same time the concept DUREX is driven into their awareness. In this way, a subconscious connection is sought between the unpleasant emotion experienced by the target during identification with the character in the story and the word DUREX. The connection between the anchor and the topic of the story does not have to be entirely explicit, so that the target of the influence begins to wonder why this particular word is mentioned so often. This stage is repeated frequently, because it is necessary to arouse interest, curiosity, and provoke emotion.

After this stage follows the application of the anchor on its own, through its use in posts, while simultaneously observing how the target reacts—whether they show signs of irritation whenever the anchor is mentioned. If the anchoring is successful, the trolls will possess a mechanism for influencing the person’s emotional state whenever they wish.

Of course, instead of a word, an image may be used. In that case, the image becomes the emotion-triggering factor. Such an image could be something negative in which the individual is trained to identify themselves. Thus, every time the image is presented, a cascade of emotions, doubts, and associations is triggered in the person’s consciousness, disturbing their inner peace.

This process can also be carried out by algorithms, through personalized content delivered to users of services provided by IT monopolists such as Google, for example. Images and keywords can be embedded in personalized advertisements, recommendations, curated news, and so on.

Another possible form of conditioning may consist not in associating a word, expression, idea, or image with a given emotion, but in associating their interpretation with a given (most often unpleasant) emotion. For example, a person may be trained to react to certain patterns within the stimulus presented to them. With images, this might be the number of identical objects in them, or the location depicted, or the type of objects shown, or something else. In posts, this might be the presence of certain numbers, or the placement of capital letters in unusual places, spelling mistakes, unexpected colors, a particular font style, and so on.

eVEn sTrAnGeLy pLaCeD CaPiTaL LeTtErS may not irritate you the first time, nor mIsSpElLiNg mIsTaKeS, or unusual colors in the text, or the u$e 0f $ymB0L$, but they disrupt the smoothness of information processing, increase cognitive effort, and disturb the sense of order, which gives them an irritating effect. Over time, this irritation may intensify, depending on the trolls’ other actions, the frequency of your participation, your emotional involvement in the discussions, your overall state of being, your life context, and of course many other factors.

As has become clear, anything can be an anchor, both online and in real life. For example, if every day on your way home from work you see a particular person at a particular spot along your route, and that person initially caught your attention with something during your first encounters, that person may become an anchor. If the person looks at their phone every time you see them, the anchor is likely to be even stronger. But if you are already “anchored” to the act of looking at a phone, then of course it is no longer necessary for the same person to perform the action every time. In this case, the anchor is the act of looking at the phone, not the person.

Or one day you might meet a woman with a white Bolognese dog with a pink bow. The next day you meet her again. The day after that as well. On the following day the woman might be different, and later still the dog might no longer have a bow. If the staging is done well, in the end you may start jumping every time you see a white Bolognese dog.

The possibilities are many, and in a suitable environment for influence and with sufficient intent, most people can be “anchored.” In essence, this is the well-known psychological conditioning of a connection between a stimulus and certain emotions and mental states, whether in everyday life or in the online environment.