So You're Joining A Cult. Here Are 10 Things You Should Know.

By Leah Bond, Mikayla Dunford, Alexander Glando, Marlana Barnard, and Ashley Mays

1. You may experience violence

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Cults are often stereotyped as having a lot of violence toward and within their separate groups, even though the majority of cults do not inflict violence upon each other. The history of violence in the listed cults often had to do with the psychological control leaders wanted to have over their members. A couple of instances of extreme violence from cults include the Manson Family murders, Peoples Temple murder-suicides, and the Heaven’s Gate suicides. Professors and historians from around the world want you to know that although there is a history of extreme cult violence from different cults around the globe, these incidences are not an all-encompassing portrayal of cults overall.

2. You may be socially deprived.

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In a paper written by Stark and Bainbrige that examined the typical recruitment process of several cults, noted that cults tend to actively seek individuals who suffer from social deprivation.  Such individuals are likely to be described as social outcasts, people who have been rejected by the larger society.  These individuals are likely referred to as awkward, weird, and perhaps cold individuals.  In general, we are social creatures.  Therefore, cults are more likely to appeal to those who are socially deprived because it could be an opportunity for lonely persons to surround themselves with others who have the same interests.  

3. You probably live in California.

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There are 501 independent cult groups around America that hold different beliefs and perform different rituals. The state of California remains home for 1/3rd of the discovered cults today. Regionally, the Pacific side of the U.S. has the highest cult rate (6.9 per million) and the Southern region has the lowest. The Eastern side of the U.S. had the larger proportion of cult before the 1930s, but they migrated toward the Pacific, because America is known for having fertile ground for new religions regardless of the direction traveled.

4. You might be a vegetarian.

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Candidacy for cults is an important aspect in order for cults to find out who you really are and if you will be of use for their agendas. Spero touches on a few ideas of candidacy such as: constant movement (usually searching for candidates), chants, discussions, some members are followed constantly by their leaders, and control over diets by implementing vegetarian diets for everyone. Leaders tend to ingrain anxiety and other kinds of psychological disorders into their candidates early on in the process, emphasizing how they need to distance themselves from their former lives as much as possible.

5. You aren't necessarily "brainwashed."

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People tend to believe those who join cults are brainwashed and uneducated when these people have actually been selected through areas where they apply good sense and critical judgement within the boundaries of the cult. Brainwashing is simply considered the fundamental level of control within the cult, because a cult is organized around a strong authority figure. Members have been known to lose their individuality throughout the process, but brainwashing is the misconception for the authoritative control of the leader.

6. You probably don't think you're joining a cult.

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Think joining a cult is all sunshine and rainbows? Researchers Salande and Perkins believe that is what they have found in their study from 2011. When people seek to join a cult, they believe that they are not actually joining a cult. They believe that they are joining a group of people that would never seek to harm them, and instead a group that has similar values and ideals. How does this happen? Well, according to Salande and Perkins, the reason we join social groups in general is the desire to fit in, to feel loved, to have meaning, and to feel happiness, all things that cult members also feel that they are joining.  

7. The cult you join will match your intellectual strengths.  

  

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If one is more educated, it is understood that one probably can understand more complicated and more challenging topics than others. While this may not always be true, it does apply to cult membership. Bader and Demaris found in their study just that idea: the more educated one is, it is more likely that they will join a cult that has “higher order” ideas. In other words, a cult that has more expansive techniques or has very skilled topics of interest, then that is more likely to attract an educated person.

8. You need to brush up on resisting social control.

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So you have made the plunge to join a cult, but are still unsure of how you will be treated. Say goodbye to all your old friends and family, as your cult leader will attempt to isolate you by removing all contact with those who do not share the same beliefs as you do. They will attempt to coerce you, using violence or threats. Rewards may even be offered, giving you incentives to stay in the cult and contribute. The cult leader will attempt to legitimize their control over you, stating that they have a right to order you around and you have an obligation to follow their orders.

9. Want to get out? Involve your family in the process.

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So you have managed to escape your cult in one piece, and now you want to try and get back to normal. While it may seem embarrassing, your family will most likely have to be involved in this process. It is important to use a combination of both family therapy and individual therapy. Including your family in the process can help prevent you from regressing back to your beliefs when you were a cult member, and it can help to keep you motivated to continue on with the individual therapy sessions. 

10. There is a path to recovery.

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Martin and others note that cult leaders use psychological control and personality manipulation techniques to control all members.  Former cult members explain that they endured abused in some fashion, typically physical or mental abuse.  Members felt pressured to conform and were greatly pressured into remaining an active member.  As a result, cult members are under great distress and when they decide to leave the organization they tend to face many challenges.  There are also challenges while trying to readjust to a normal life.  Despite these challenges, most individuals are resilient and with the proper forms of help are quickly back to living a normal life.  

10 Things You Never Knew About Manipulation in Cults

By: Nick Hatfield, Ryen Beach, Madison Levine, Kelsie Kreuzburg, Maria Bravo

1. They have it down to a science.

Groupthink refers to the mode of thinking wherein the importance of concurrence becomes so dominant in a group of people that it overrides realistic alternative thinking or courses of action. It is the “deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgements as a result of group pressures." Robert Jay Lifton is a psychologist who studied mind control and conceptualized the idea of thought reform. Thought reform is the structured alteration of a person’s method of thinking. Lifton proposed eight methods that are used to change people’s minds which can give us insight into how cults are able to “brainwash” their members.

2. They manipulate their members by cutting them off from outside information.  

                                
According to Lifton, Milieu control is a way to manipulate people. Milieu Control is outside information is cutoff or filtered from a group. When looking at manipulation in cults, it commonly seen that the leader keeps the outside world  from “invading” his/hers community and distorts information to keep his/hers followers believing in a way he/she wants them to and doing things that don’t rationally make since. Jim Jones would hide information from his followers and started his community in South America away from civilization. By doing this, he could tell them anything he wanted and they would believe him because they had no other source of information to compare it to. This lack of knowledge led the followers to think the same because it is all they knew and it led to irrational decisions.

3. They create doctrines that stifle doubt.

Thought reform forces a group into absolute cohesiveness so that whatever decisions are made by the leader are blindly followed by the members of the cult. This blind faith in their leaders creates a form of cohesion that cannot be found outside of cults. Members need to keep the cult together for its common goal and in order to do this, the leader must create a belief that their doctrine is correct and what is right. Individuals feel that their experiences are in conflict over what the leader has told them they should be experiencing. They internalize the message that when your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings are in conflict with the message of the leader, you are in the wrong.

4. They use mystical manipulation.

                                                  

Mystical manipulation or in other words, planned spontaneity. Mystical Manipulation is part of Lifton’s thought reform on manipulation in cults. It is extensive personal manipulation. It seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion. They make it appear as if it has come from the environment, when actually it is planned. It also legitimizes deception used to recruit new members, raise funds, and deception used on the outside world. Cult members are also manipulated to always remember they have a higher and better purpose than those that are not part of the cult.

5. Confession is good for the soul...and for maintaining cult loyalty.

Part of Robert Jay Lifton’s eight methods of thought reform are the ideas of  purity and confession. Individuals in the cult are taught to confess (what the group considers to be) past ‘sins’ so as to reinforce that action as wrong and not to be repeated, while additionally, being pushed towards an unattainable perfection. This enforces conformity through guilt and shame by using both self-criticism and group criticism. A real life example of these tactics can be found in the “Church of Scientology” which using a type of confessional termed “auditing” in which new members must unburden themselves by answering certain questions which lead to them confessing any perceived wrongdoing.

6. Mind control is actually used by leaders to control their followers.

Dr. Anson Shupe and colleagues have analyzed stereotypes of cults and brainwashed converts as social constructions in the context of ideological conflict and legitimizing a social movement. Cultists are viewed as being “possessed” and under control by another person or force that ultimately suppresses their individuality and can therefore use them for purposes they would not normally accept.

7. They use fear to keep their followers in line.  

                     

Fear  is a strong factor in reasons why we do certain things, and when it comes to cults it is very effective. In groupthink, creativity and independent thinking is discouraged because it could disrupt the harmony and peace of the group. As the followers of the cult become afraid to say or do something that differs from the established ideals they begin to suppress their own ideals and follow along with the “norm” of the community. As this following continues, the followers begin to adopt the group's way of thinking (established by the leader) and discard their own way of thinking. Jim Jones for example made his followers scared to be different from his teachings to the point people would rat on each other if the other did something that didn’t follow the “norm” of the community. By doing this, he was able to get his followers to have think as one because they didn’t want to cause problems by thinking differently. So, in order to avoid being in a cult you should challenge ideals that don’t agree with you and question “The Man.”

8. They foster dependence on the group.

                                    

People who join cults suffer from the Group Dependence Disorder. It is very hard to get out of a cult, and one of the reasons is because of this dependence. It makes you feel that you need the group in your life. The people who are involved in cults are said to have Group Dependence Disorder, caused because of the high cohesiveness, the great insulation and the cult centering. The dependence that cult members feel on their group is similar to alcohol or drug dependence.

9. They use classic Skinnerian methods of manipulation: punishments and rewards.

        

Dr. Margaret T. Singer wrote in her book “Cults in Our Midst” (p. 64-69), 6 conditions for Thought Reform. One of them is a system of punishments, reward and experiences.

Here cults reward the good behaviors, such as accepting the group’s ideology, and punish the bad ones, like questioning the leader, doubting and criticizing the beliefs of the group. The punishments can vary from physical ones (like spanking – which is more common for kids), to physiological ones (like marginalization – which is more common for adults). They do this to foster the learning of the group’s ideology and the right behaviors, so that the people that join the cult don’t ask questions and follow the leader meekly.

10. There is hope if you're in a cult.

                                                         

Know there are many stages, and it starts with being able to separate yourself from others. Since cult members tend to isolate its members, being back in contact with friends and family, and having a strong support network will help with an ex-cult member’s reality check. Remember that everything they brainwashed you with was a way to keep you in the cult, and those feelings will go away, but you must remain strong.

So You Got a Bid, Now What?: 10 Things Psychology Can Tell Us About Greek Life

By Amy Conner, Felicia Knott, Jade Lewis, Dacotah McGaffic, and Molly Zydel

1. You're more likely to go Greek if your friends do too.

It is your freshman year of college. Walking around campus, you notice all of the other students wearing Greek Letters and hanging out with others in their fraternity or sorority. They seem to be having the time of their lives. Then, all of your friends announce that they will be rushing in order to join Greek Life. After hearing this, you decide to join in the fun and rush as well. Your behavior is well-described by Social Impact Theory. This theory states that the impact of social influence increases when there are more people surrounding a person with similar beliefs and behaviors (Seltzer, Johnson, & Amira, 2013). Applying this to Greek Life on campus, this leads us to believe that college students become involved in fraternities and sororities when the people they are frequently around are also involved in Greek Life. They also tend to become more like the group as a whole, because those behaviors and beliefs are what they are surrounded by on a daily basis.


2. You'll do a lot to belong to your group. 

Even though hazing is strictly prohibited by many schools, there are still cases seen in the news about pledges needing medical attention due to a right-of-passage activity. For example, just a few years ago two fraternities at the University of Virginia sent several pledges to the hospital after one of these tasks. You may ask why these students participate in these potentially dangerous activities. Compliance in these activities can be traced back to these students’ need to belong. These students tend to fear that denying participation in these activities will leave them shunned and in many cases, they are not completely wrong.


3. People who "go Greek" are very responsive to social situations.

After being in Greek for a while, you notice that you seem to almost have different personalities around different people. You change to accommodate for different social demands across several different situations. Psychologists would say that you are high in your public self-consciousness. Those who are high in public self-consciousness were also high on self-monitoring, meaning that those who are very aware of how others perceive them also tend to be aware of social demands, and change in order to meet those demands. People who join Greek organizations are likely to be high on these personality traits.


4. You'll do what your Big does.

Have you ever been in a new place where you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing? You know, like at your first party and you have no clue how a keg works. So after having a minor panic attack, watched your Big get their beer and before you knew it, you had it down like a pro. Everyone’s been there. When we don't know how to behave we use other people as information to dictate, or influence, our behavior. Many studies in Greek Life show that after observing peers engage in drinking behaviors an individual may then model their own drinking behavior according to these observations because it is seen as a social norm.


5. You'll encounter pressures to conform with your group's behavior. 

The pressure to accept group norms has a significant impact on the high rates of alcohol consumption in fraternity members. With any group, there are pressures to accommodate social norms, but this pressure seems to be particularly high in these starts as superficial change in behavior to be a part of the in group, many of organizations leading to a form of public conformity. Although this values. these member are eventually influenced into truly believing in the groups


6. You will likely change your behavior to match others in the group.

A majority of individuals in Greek life tend to be high self-monitors due to the strong pressures to conform to the group. Because of how necessary it is to conform when involved in a Greek organization, if you are a high self-monitoring individual you will likely very willingly change your behavior so as to not appear unloyal or not passionate about your membership in the group. Self- monitoring is generally explained as the tendency to change one’s behavior in order to meet the demands of social situations. We all do it to some extent, whether it’s high or low self-monitoring. By definition, low self-monitors generally use inner beliefs and values when deciding how to behave, while high self-monitors usually monitor their surroundings and change their behavior to fit in.

7. Your identities merge as one. 

Ever wonder why all sorority girls or frat boys all seem the same? Social Identity theory describes situations in which one’s sense of self is based on group membership. In a study done by Biernat and others (1996), those parts of a fraternity or sorority conform to the behavior of that membership. They conform to the ideas, positive stereotypes, and attitudes of their group and make it their own. Over time, membership in the fraternity or sorority creates a self-schema, meaning that it becomes an important part of members' identities.


8. You'll do your best to present the best you.  

So now you’ve met a few people. They’re extra nice, know everyone, have good hair and are basically perfect. You, on the other hand, are not perfect and close to begging for bids so you decide to change your self-presentation. Self presentation, or impression management, are strategies used to shape and manage what others think of them which can be accurate or misleading. These strategies are used to express oneself in a manner that is seemed to be desirable. In doing so the individual controls information about themselves to allows others to have a specific impression on them.


9. You may develop a bias against those who didn’t go Greek.

If you join a Greek organization members of the organization will become your “in-group”, which is a social group in which a person psychologically identifies as a member. Membership in a group like Greek life typically becomes a very large factor in its members’ identities. After all, who doesn’t want to have a group of people in which they feel they truly belong? In contrast, an out-group consists of people who do not belong to the in-group. As one study explains, “individuals who belong to socially advantaged groups [such as Greek life] typically exhibit more implicit preference for their in-groups and bias against out-groups than do members of socially disadvantaged groups [people not involved in Greek life].” So, you will likely end up developing an implicit preference for those in your sorority or fraternity and develop a bias against those not involved in Greek life. Be aware of this change you may experience, and try not to exclude your pre-Greek life friends!


10. It makes you more collectivistic.     

Groups are probably one of the first things you associate with Greek life. Collectivism is when someone gives a group priority over themselves. Greek life gives any member more of a collectivist personality. Greek life gives you the opportunity to work close with others and form a close relationship with them. Since working closely with everyone for the amount of time they are part of the organization, they retain this collectivist attribute. This means that even after one leaves college for greater things, they still maintain this collectivist approaches.

8 Ways to Make a Good First Impression

By Isabella Barron, Asilinn Foutz, Jenna Gordon, and Ryan Hedgepeth

1. Look the Part; It Turns Out People Do Judge a Book by Its Cover 

                                    

                                     Via 9GAG

If it’s your first time meeting someone, what kind of personality judgments might you make if they’re well-dressed in a nice suit or if they’re rocking sweatpants and a stained shirt? As it turns out, when you first encounter someone, the first information they have readily available about you in order to form an impression is based on your physical appearance. Like it or not, people often make judgments about your physical appearance to infer various personality traits (and you’re probably guilty of it, too). In fact, according to this study there are even some specific physical appearance cues that often relate to specific personality traits. For example, as you might even expect, some studies have shown that wearing glasses can lead to people perceiving you as more intelligent - something to keep in mind for your next job interview!

2. Your First May Be Your Last

                                       

                                        Via Quickmeme

First impressions typically persist, even in the presence of contradictory information. Once your first impression is made, you can’t take it back or change it - for better or for worse. So it’s important to know that no matter how nice and wonderful of a person you are, one bad first encounter can have a lasting impact on the way people perceive you. Research shows that people tend to pay more attention to information they receive first, and often they will even discredit the validity of information they receive later. So, always put your best foot forward! Even though first impressions are not completely irrevocable, they do matter.

3. Rehearse Your Behaviors             

           

                                                 

                                                  Via Foresee

Practice makes perfect and nobody wants to embarrass themselves; so, what do we do before meeting a new date or in the weeks before starring in a new play? We rehearse in order to know what to do, and, more importantly, what not to do. These social scripts are learned as we gain life experience. According to research, someone who goes out to eat weekly much more likely to know what behaviors are acceptable, expected even, than someone who only goes out a few times a year.

4. Stay on Your Best Behavior  

                                           

                                              Via Entertainment Weekly

President Lincoln once said, “I do not like that man. I must get to know him better.” Ever run into a stranger on a bad day and thought they must just be a horrible person? You’re not alone. As found in a Georgia State University experiment, we tend to think the worst when things don’t meet our expectations especially when someone doesn’t appear to be part of our “in-group”.

5. Actions do Speak Louder Than Words 

                    Via: themasternegotiator

Body language is the language of all cultures. As hard as some people try to hide their true emotions in what they are saying, their nonverbal behaviors tend to reveal their true feelings. A simple head nod or shake of the head can confirm or deny a person’s feelings about something without them even noticing. To make a good first impression, be very aware of your actions. If you are trying to get someone to like you, have your body agree with what you are saying. If your body language is confirming what you are saying, and also what the other person is saying, they are more likely to have a positive first impression of you. Research shows that people notice your body language even if they are not doing so consciously.

6. Your First Real Meeting May Not Be Your First Impression

                Via: fimedia

With all the new technology, people often know you before they even meet you. What you say on social media can significantly impact how people perceive you. People tend to not think twice about what they post online, not realizing that it is usually free to the public. You never know who is going to see what you post, and it can play a strong role in how people think of you before they even meet you. To make a good first impression, only say things on social media that you would be okay saying in person. A good trick for this, is to think about how you would feel if your grandmother saw your social media. If you would feel uncomfortable, it is probably wise to not post it. Research has shown that people tend to create strong first impressions based off of social media accounts, especially in more recent times, now that people are first becoming acquainted online.

7. Always Use Your Time Wisely

When it comes to making a good first impression you are not always aware of how long this interaction will last. Research has shown that when we meet someone within the first 5 seconds we have already constructed some type of personal impression of that person. This unconscious act is known as thin slicing. Surprisingly someone’s impression of you within the first 5 seconds is more accurate than you would think, but the study also shows that the thin slicing accuracy of a person’s judgement of you increases during a 5 minute encounter. So when it comes to making a good first impression try to put yourself in a situation that allows you the most time possible to prove yourself, and always make every second count!     

  8. Your Face Says it All

Studies have shown that the first impressions of people’s personalities are often formed by the visual appearance of their face. It is believed that when you meet/see a person for the first time the facial expression that you are wearing during the encounter will automatically have influence on what someone thinks about your personality. For example: if you’re having a bad day and carry an expression on your face that reflects that, someone who doesn't know you will possibly forever judge you as “the person with the bad attitude.” It is always important when making a good first impression to be aware of your facial signals even if it doesn’t exactly reflect how you’re feeling inside at that very moment.