8 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010
perceptual categories and their differing levels
of cognitive readiness allows us to recognise
that, when Tajfel talks of the “emotional and
value significance” of a social group to our
identity, he is giving the cognitive some
normative core. This work also allows us to
recognise that, for those in extremist groups, the
level of emotional and value significance is far,
far higher than most of us can possibly imagine.
The best analogy I can think of is to describe the
feeling—and most, but not all of us experience
this—of the first time you thought you were
really falling in love… and then you broke up.
That is somewhere close to the emotional and
value significance that cults seem to hold for
some of their members. The group is literally
everything to them it is their whole life.
Now clinically, one can explain why this might
not be psychologically the best or healthiest way
to live. But cognitively, too, this appears to do
something strange to the normal way in which
people are able to move quickly and seamlessly
between the different categories that are part of
them. OK, some categories may be higher up the
perceptual repertoire than others—more
“perceptually ready,” to use Bruner’s term this
may also be caused by the available social
stimuli—i.e., is the context relevant to the group.
So when I am watching my football team
Nottingham Forest play, along with the normal
feeling of sadness, I am also psychologically
less likely to be thinking as a member of my
political party, for example.
In cults and extreme groups, the milieu, as
Lifton and Singer/Lalich explain, is dominated
by the group it also appears that the group is
dominant in terms of perceptual readiness. All of
this adds up to a highly salient social
psychological category, and one that is
apparently dominant over most, and sometimes
all others. So a separate model has emerged in
my work, which I have labelled as the theory of
“totalistic identity,” wherein the cult or extremist
group identity appears to be so totally
dominant—it is totalistic—that it effectively
blocks out the normal cognitive movement
between categorisations at different levels.
The usual repertoire of categories—other
groups, and other likes and dislikes at the
personal level—simply appear to be unavailable
or less available. This model resonates with the
many personal accounts of former members of
cults or extremist groups who recall how they
had forgotten their precult identities and after
they left the group, they had to remember and
relearn them. It also resonates with the startling
differences that family members and friends see
in their loved one when he or she is in a cult-like
group: All that the person previously identified
with—the local golf club, membership in a
drama group, or other hobbies—seems to be
subsumed, cut off, cognitively and
psychologically.
Most of the time, however, these descriptions
are not how current members of such groups
think or feel. Their complete faith and belief in
the group and its leader feels completely normal
to them—although this trust can and does wane,
and questions do appear for some but not for
others.
Explaining Social Influence
The influence process that this theoretical
perspective describes is also very different from
traditional, more atomistic, billiard-ball accounts
of social influence. Again, instead of seeing
influence as a process entirely of one person
having an impact on another (or a group having
an impact on a person), the social-identity
tradition, by virtue of understanding how the
group is part of the self, sees the group influence
as essentially self-referential, as well. So when
group members sell their papers, raise money,
persuade people to come to their events, sell
their houses and give the money to the group,
and so on, they do these things because the
action reinforces the group identity that has
become such an important part of their self-
identity. This is what Turner calls “referent
informational influence,” and it is a decided
break from the dualistic notion in earlier
theories, such as that of Deutsch and Gerard
(1955), which suggested that a belief either
would be internalised and believed in
(informational influence) or merely played along
with because of external pressures and norms or
expectations (normative influence).
Of course, a group member with referent
informational influence is under a lot of
perceptual categories and their differing levels
of cognitive readiness allows us to recognise
that, when Tajfel talks of the “emotional and
value significance” of a social group to our
identity, he is giving the cognitive some
normative core. This work also allows us to
recognise that, for those in extremist groups, the
level of emotional and value significance is far,
far higher than most of us can possibly imagine.
The best analogy I can think of is to describe the
feeling—and most, but not all of us experience
this—of the first time you thought you were
really falling in love… and then you broke up.
That is somewhere close to the emotional and
value significance that cults seem to hold for
some of their members. The group is literally
everything to them it is their whole life.
Now clinically, one can explain why this might
not be psychologically the best or healthiest way
to live. But cognitively, too, this appears to do
something strange to the normal way in which
people are able to move quickly and seamlessly
between the different categories that are part of
them. OK, some categories may be higher up the
perceptual repertoire than others—more
“perceptually ready,” to use Bruner’s term this
may also be caused by the available social
stimuli—i.e., is the context relevant to the group.
So when I am watching my football team
Nottingham Forest play, along with the normal
feeling of sadness, I am also psychologically
less likely to be thinking as a member of my
political party, for example.
In cults and extreme groups, the milieu, as
Lifton and Singer/Lalich explain, is dominated
by the group it also appears that the group is
dominant in terms of perceptual readiness. All of
this adds up to a highly salient social
psychological category, and one that is
apparently dominant over most, and sometimes
all others. So a separate model has emerged in
my work, which I have labelled as the theory of
“totalistic identity,” wherein the cult or extremist
group identity appears to be so totally
dominant—it is totalistic—that it effectively
blocks out the normal cognitive movement
between categorisations at different levels.
The usual repertoire of categories—other
groups, and other likes and dislikes at the
personal level—simply appear to be unavailable
or less available. This model resonates with the
many personal accounts of former members of
cults or extremist groups who recall how they
had forgotten their precult identities and after
they left the group, they had to remember and
relearn them. It also resonates with the startling
differences that family members and friends see
in their loved one when he or she is in a cult-like
group: All that the person previously identified
with—the local golf club, membership in a
drama group, or other hobbies—seems to be
subsumed, cut off, cognitively and
psychologically.
Most of the time, however, these descriptions
are not how current members of such groups
think or feel. Their complete faith and belief in
the group and its leader feels completely normal
to them—although this trust can and does wane,
and questions do appear for some but not for
others.
Explaining Social Influence
The influence process that this theoretical
perspective describes is also very different from
traditional, more atomistic, billiard-ball accounts
of social influence. Again, instead of seeing
influence as a process entirely of one person
having an impact on another (or a group having
an impact on a person), the social-identity
tradition, by virtue of understanding how the
group is part of the self, sees the group influence
as essentially self-referential, as well. So when
group members sell their papers, raise money,
persuade people to come to their events, sell
their houses and give the money to the group,
and so on, they do these things because the
action reinforces the group identity that has
become such an important part of their self-
identity. This is what Turner calls “referent
informational influence,” and it is a decided
break from the dualistic notion in earlier
theories, such as that of Deutsch and Gerard
(1955), which suggested that a belief either
would be internalised and believed in
(informational influence) or merely played along
with because of external pressures and norms or
expectations (normative influence).
Of course, a group member with referent
informational influence is under a lot of
