Great info.
I have a addional thought about "why" going out in service is useful to the Wtbts.
The more "sever" the initiation, ie; field service, telling teachers, school mates your beliefs and not being able to be involved in holidays and other embarrassing moments that the Jw are subjected to creates dissonance. The way to reduce this dissonance that these embarrassing moments create is by "exaggerating the desirability of the goal" in this case, being a JW.
Here is the paste of the idea behind this.
The Effort-Justification Paradigm
Further information: Effort justification
Dissonance is aroused whenever individuals voluntarily engage in an unpleasant activity to achieve some desired goal. Dissonance can be reduced by exaggerating the desirability of the goal. Aronson & Mills [ 21 ] had individuals undergo a severe or mild "initiation" in order to become a member of a group. In the "mild-initiation" condition, the individuals engaged in an embarrassing activity. The group they joined turned out to be very dull and boring. The individuals in the severe-initiation condition evaluated the group as more interesting than the individuals in the mild-initiation condition.
All of the above paradigms continue to be used in fruitful research.
Washing one's hands has been shown to eliminate post-decisional dissonance, presumably because the dissonance is often caused by moral disgust (with oneself) which is related to disgust from unsanitary conditions. [ 22 ] [ 23 ]
(I had to edit one spot in this wiki poste as they used "severe-initiation" in both examples. I quoted this instance where I changed one of the to " mild- initiation")
Here is the link to the main page of Cognitive Dissonance where the effort justification is located.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#The_Effort-Justification_Paradigm
I have never seen this thought brought out that service can be used in this regard. Ay thoughts on this?
NJY