Psychology Of Cults Term paper
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Cults: Reasons People Join
Cults are intriguing and arouse curiosity in the minds of people who have accepted life in society and joined humanity the way it is. It is amazing to think that people leave their life of normalcy to put their trust in something that is alien but promises them something in return or will save their souls from whatever will harm them. There are many causes that affect people s minds to make them join cults. Cults are very promising, can be very eye-opening, and may be the only option left for some people because of what has happened to them in their life or the mental state they are in.
Cults, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, are systems or communities of religious worship that may include obsessive devotion to a person or ideal. In our society, cults are common and have the potential to be destructive. This paper will focus on the factors such as education, stake in conformity, turning points, and strength of local religious organizations that may cause people to join cults, as determined by Stark and Bainbridge. It will also discuss the methods used by cults to influence new recruits and current members. Cult leaders employ tactics such as information deprivation, extinction of former identities, and scarcity in order to maintain their authority. All these techniques combined create an environment that can be classified as a cult.
Traditionally, cults have formed after or during turbulent periods of history, when people are most vulnerable. However, not until the nineteen seventies did cults begin to raise considerable alarm among the general population. In 1978, over nine hundred followers on the Reverend Jim Jones committed suicide in Jonestown, Guyana (Hall, 1981, 1987, as cited by Robbins, 1988). Several anti-cult groups began to form and call for free minds and reunited families (Sage, 1976, as cited by Robbins, 1988). Then, in the nineteen eighties, professionals began to tackle the problem of destructive cults, moderating the intense deprogramming methods that had been previously used (Shupe and Bromley, 1987, Shupe, 1985, as cited by Robbins, 1988).
Currently, the most publicized cult is the Moonies, or the followers of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. This movement draws attention because of its media and political linkages, financial practices and commercial diversification (Bromley, 1985; Grafstein, 1984, Robbins, 1985a., as cited by Robbins, 1998). More recently, twenty-one female and nineteen male followers of the Heaven s Gate cult committed mass suicide in order to follow the Hal Bop comet (Zimbardo, 1997). This incident raised a new awareness of the damage cults can cause.
Another example of cults would be the Branch Davidian Cult that existed in Waco, Texas. This was clearly a case of a people who were vulnerable psychologically and were easy to be manipulated. It is amazing to see how one man can attract all of those people and make them believe he is more than just a human being and that he is someone who will take care of them forever. What made these people decide to leave their life in society and join such a cult, live in a compound sacrifice everything to live with this stranger?
In a recent study, Chris Bader and Alfred Demaris use the Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion in order to determine what factors cause people to join to cults. In 1987, Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge created three hundred and forty-four propositions that explain nearly every aspect of religion, including why people join cults (Bader and Demaris, 1996). First, the terms sect and cult were operationalized as follows: Cults are new religious movements-movements that have not split off from another religious organization and sects are movements that split off from churches because of a dispute over beliefs and practices (Bader and Demaris, 1996).
The specific propositions that Bader and Demaris chose to study are 1) Persons with low stakes in conformity tend to have less favorable evaluations of conventional [religious] explanations than do persons with higher stakes in conformity. (P204)
2) Persons who desire limited rewards that exist but who lack the social power to obtain them will tend to affiliate with sects, to the extent that their society possesses a dominant religious tradition supported by the elite. (P219). 3) Persons who desire limited rewards that exist, but who lack the social power to obtain them, will tend to affiliate with cults, to the extent that their society does not posses a dominant religious tradition supported by the elite. (P220). 4) People who repeatedly experience turning points in their lives are more likely than other people to become chronic religious seekers. (P221). As cited by Bader and Demaris, Stark and Bainbridge defined a turning point as a period of markedly decreased attachment, investment, involvement, and belief, taken singularly or in any combination.
In order to test the hypothesis suggested by the propositions, Bader and Demaris used a survey distributed by the National Survey of Families and Households. The survey yielded 12,415 subjects, with those who chose none as religious preference serving as the control.
Four independent variables were set up in reference to the propositions: stake in conformity, education, strength of conventional religious organizations, and turning point measurements. To measure turning points, questions concerning number of marriages, number of jobs, number of authority figures from a subject s youth, and number of moves were used. Stake in conformity was measured in terms of attachments, or important relationships that keep individual from deviating, investments of money, energy or time, and involvement in conventional activities (Bader and Demaris, 1996).
Of the 12,415 subjects, 1,031 claimed no religious preference. Of the remaining subjects, 83.5% were church members, 7.1% were sect members and...
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