I'll always remember a conversation I had with a wise friend in India. I was travelling in areas where kidnappings and bandrity were common, and when I commented that I might get killed or something, he laughed and said, "You? No way! If any tough guys came up to you that way, you'd start talking to them, explain to them why they didn't really want to do that, show them some better way to make money, defuse the whole thing and end up putting your arm over their shoulder and walking down the road as friends... then apologizing that you were too busy, when they asked you to be their new leader." [Or something to that effect.]
I thought that an odd and way over-optimisitic response, but he was at least a little serious. The more I thought about it, the more I thought he might be on to something. Reacting in the usual fearful, indimidated way gets the usual results. If you want an unusual outcome, you need to behave differently. Defuse things with a careful sense of humor. Show some understanding instead of fear, and meet them head-on in a way that they feel shows some respect and understanding - don't look down or talk down to them, but don't knuckle under or be weak, either. Underneath all the misguided behavior, everyone is human, and respond in similar patterns to others. The only ones it would never work on are the "chemically disturbed" types -- the crackheads looking for cash for their next fix, for example.
The Stockholm syndrome is fascinating. It is actually a mental response (a bizzare one, but real) on the part of victims with some weaknesses to begin with, but it COULD be sort of mimicked by knowledgeable captives to adjust the balance of power in such situations.
