International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010 7
elsewhere, that this important body of work can
also give us critical insights into why and how
individuals join and become active agents for the
type of extremist cults that Lifton and others
have so vividly described. Wherever you find a
cult, after all, you find an awful lot of
stereotyping and prejudice from the members
within it. The “us” and “them” labels that Lifton
outlines is clearly part of the stereotypical or
prototypical group beliefs and norms, but it also
is how the group is self-categorised, as we will
see.
So the breakthrough of Social Identity Theory
was to demonstrate that the social world does
not just impact upon us, as was advanced in
traditional social psychology (as in the work of
Floyd Allport, for example). This has sometimes
been labelled as the “billiard-ball” approach to
social interaction—the view that the social will
impact on the individual, and the individual may
be moved or influenced in a particular direction
but overall the individual is unchanged and can
move on, psychology all intact.
Instead, the key advance was to show how the
social realm is part of the individual—it exists
inside of all of us, as part of our cognitive
system of categories. Tajfel’s work is clear in
showing that social or group identity, then, is a
regular part of a person’s self-concept or self-
identity (Tajfel 1978). It has been demonstrated
in countless experiments how categorisation,
along group lines, can take place extraordinarily
quickly and without any normative content,
including without any interpersonal attraction.
So Billig and Tajfel (1974) showed how
splitting people who didn’t know each other at
all into two groups, based on a less-than-relevant
categorisation—preference for Klee or
Kandinsky paintings—was enough to lead to
group identification and prejudice in what have
become famously known as the
“minimal group experiments.”
Of course, most groups are not minimal in this
way—cults least of all and that interpersonal
attraction is not necessary for group
identification has been vividly demonstrated in
other experiments in this field. The formation of
the “psychological group,” then, is a core
concept from Social Identity Theory, which John
Turner took and advanced further in the Self-
Categorisation Theory (1987).
This body of theory and research demonstrates
clearly how the same processes of categorisation
that allow us to recognise classes of objects—
chairs, lecturns, apples, spiders—allow us to
also recognise social groups. It is this process of
deductive reasoning in our perceptions that
allows us to use and apply what we already
know—often referred to as prototypes in
cognitive psychology—to the stimuli we face
every day. We do not have to inductively relearn
what a chair is every time we see one. In the
same way, students do not have to relearn what
their teacher or lecturer is there for each time
they walk into the classroom in the morning.
Social categorisation allows for cognitive short-
cutting, and it is also what explains
stereotyping—e.g., there are group norms that a
group is best known for. A stereotype may have
a “kernel of truth” to it (and this varies of
course) and certain attributes become the group
norms, accepted by group members as part of
their self-defining group concept, and accepted
by others outside. The basis of stereotyping is
best expressed by the concept of the
metacontrast ratio, which is the ratio of
perceived intergroup difference to intragroup
similarity. So the more cohesive the group, the
more certain of its beliefs its members are, the
more they carry out those beliefs as group
norms and the more the group is perceived as
different from other groups, the higher the
metacontrast ratio. Penelope Oakes refers to this
position (as part of the Self-Categorization
Theory) as the “separateness and clarity” of the
social categorisation. And when one thinks of
extremist groups and cults, it is fairly clear that
they fit this overall description very easily: a
highly cohesive group who see themselves and
who are seen by others as very very different
from everyone else.
Self-Categorisation Theory draws on the work
of Eleanor Rosch to explain the “basic level”
categorisations that humans make all the time to
allow them to recognise the chair and the
table—and all you lost souls out there and those
of us in my church who are the chosen ones to
save mankind from apocalyptic disaster! Jerome
Bruner’s pioneering work on different
elsewhere, that this important body of work can
also give us critical insights into why and how
individuals join and become active agents for the
type of extremist cults that Lifton and others
have so vividly described. Wherever you find a
cult, after all, you find an awful lot of
stereotyping and prejudice from the members
within it. The “us” and “them” labels that Lifton
outlines is clearly part of the stereotypical or
prototypical group beliefs and norms, but it also
is how the group is self-categorised, as we will
see.
So the breakthrough of Social Identity Theory
was to demonstrate that the social world does
not just impact upon us, as was advanced in
traditional social psychology (as in the work of
Floyd Allport, for example). This has sometimes
been labelled as the “billiard-ball” approach to
social interaction—the view that the social will
impact on the individual, and the individual may
be moved or influenced in a particular direction
but overall the individual is unchanged and can
move on, psychology all intact.
Instead, the key advance was to show how the
social realm is part of the individual—it exists
inside of all of us, as part of our cognitive
system of categories. Tajfel’s work is clear in
showing that social or group identity, then, is a
regular part of a person’s self-concept or self-
identity (Tajfel 1978). It has been demonstrated
in countless experiments how categorisation,
along group lines, can take place extraordinarily
quickly and without any normative content,
including without any interpersonal attraction.
So Billig and Tajfel (1974) showed how
splitting people who didn’t know each other at
all into two groups, based on a less-than-relevant
categorisation—preference for Klee or
Kandinsky paintings—was enough to lead to
group identification and prejudice in what have
become famously known as the
“minimal group experiments.”
Of course, most groups are not minimal in this
way—cults least of all and that interpersonal
attraction is not necessary for group
identification has been vividly demonstrated in
other experiments in this field. The formation of
the “psychological group,” then, is a core
concept from Social Identity Theory, which John
Turner took and advanced further in the Self-
Categorisation Theory (1987).
This body of theory and research demonstrates
clearly how the same processes of categorisation
that allow us to recognise classes of objects—
chairs, lecturns, apples, spiders—allow us to
also recognise social groups. It is this process of
deductive reasoning in our perceptions that
allows us to use and apply what we already
know—often referred to as prototypes in
cognitive psychology—to the stimuli we face
every day. We do not have to inductively relearn
what a chair is every time we see one. In the
same way, students do not have to relearn what
their teacher or lecturer is there for each time
they walk into the classroom in the morning.
Social categorisation allows for cognitive short-
cutting, and it is also what explains
stereotyping—e.g., there are group norms that a
group is best known for. A stereotype may have
a “kernel of truth” to it (and this varies of
course) and certain attributes become the group
norms, accepted by group members as part of
their self-defining group concept, and accepted
by others outside. The basis of stereotyping is
best expressed by the concept of the
metacontrast ratio, which is the ratio of
perceived intergroup difference to intragroup
similarity. So the more cohesive the group, the
more certain of its beliefs its members are, the
more they carry out those beliefs as group
norms and the more the group is perceived as
different from other groups, the higher the
metacontrast ratio. Penelope Oakes refers to this
position (as part of the Self-Categorization
Theory) as the “separateness and clarity” of the
social categorisation. And when one thinks of
extremist groups and cults, it is fairly clear that
they fit this overall description very easily: a
highly cohesive group who see themselves and
who are seen by others as very very different
from everyone else.
Self-Categorisation Theory draws on the work
of Eleanor Rosch to explain the “basic level”
categorisations that humans make all the time to
allow them to recognise the chair and the
table—and all you lost souls out there and those
of us in my church who are the chosen ones to
save mankind from apocalyptic disaster! Jerome
Bruner’s pioneering work on different
