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years [has] been remarkably consistent in showing that hitting children increases the
chances of a child becoming physically aggressive, delinquent, or both.... [C]orporal
punishment leaves invisible scars that affect many other aspects of life‖ (Straus 1994:186).
It also ―reflects a deep but rarely perceived cultural approval of violence to correct many
types of wrongs‖ (Straus 1994:181).
Specifically writing about corporal punishment in Christian religious settings, Philip Greven
identified a litany of negative consequences on young victims, all of which have dramatic
implications for assessing risk posed by religious groups. These negative consequences for
corporal-punishment victims frequently include the creation of: anxiety and fear, anger and
hate, apathy and the stifling of empathy, melancholy and depression, obsessiveness and
rigidity, ambivalent feelings of love and hate toward the perpetrators, dissociative states,
paranoia, attraction to sadomasochism, authoritarianism, and propensities toward domestic
violence (Greven 1991:121-204). A specific religious consequence of religiously sanctioned
corporal punishment is the creation of what Greven called ―the apocalyptic impulse,‖ which
he described as ―anticipating the end of this world and the inauguration of the new
millennium‖ (Greven 1991:204). Clearly, therefore, any attempt to assess and predict
danger from religions must factor in whether they utilize corporal punishment in child-
rearing. To the extent that they do, then their members, especially those reared within
these groups, may have a propensity toward apocalyptic violence that stems from the
violence they already have known firsthand.
III. Intragroup Contributors to Religious Dangers
Just as biopsychosocial issues can increase the likelihood of violence manifesting in
interpersonal relations, so too can difficulties in interpersonal relations affect the likelihood
of violence in exchanges between individuals and groups. Initial insights into these
conditions for the likelihood of radicalized religious violence take their lead from Roy‘s work
on teen violence, but the infusion of religion into our analysis makes the conditions more
complex. Roy offered that the probability of violence increased under two conditions: Either
people feel alienated from groups (and react against them with anger), or they align with
groups that have violent norms (Roy 2000:396). The basis for these claims is Roy‘s belief
that people (especially teens) may lash out at a group which they feel has excluded or
humiliated them, but they also may commit violence simply by following the norms of a
group that is violent but which fulfills their needs for belonging, friendship, and self-esteem.
While certainly these insights have some bearing on the issue of assessing groups for their
potential risks, the infusion of religious ideology into (especially volatile) intragroup settings
makes risk assessment much more complex.
Adding to group volatility, of course, is the fact that the content of the religious ideology—
and the social structure that reinforces it—likely reflects the imbalances of the charismatic
leader. Put simply, many charismatic leaders have unrecognized biopsychosocial disorders,
and they create theologies based upon them. These theologies contain the usual secular
rewards that most groups offer—possibilities for friendship, status, purposiveness, and so
on, but also ‗heavenly‘ rewards involving enlightenment, salvation, closeness to God, and
the like. Equally important as human motivators are the secular and spiritual punishments
within these theologies—shunning, costly rehabilitation programs, dire warnings about hell
and damnation. The charismatic leaders, however, place themselves within these reward
and punishment systems either as godly arbiters who assign the rewards and punishments
or as the god-figures themselves. In either situations, the theologies replicate, in significant
degrees, the biopsychosocial dysfunctions of the leaders. As increasing numbers of people
misattribute biopsychosocial dysfunction as proof of a guru‘s charismatic connections to the
divine (see Proudfoot and Shaver 1975 Kent 1994b), they become adherents or followers
who staff social structures that attempt to maintain and further the dysfunctional
worldviews. Dysfunctional leaders and their followers, therefore, become codependents. The

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followers believe that they need their teachers‘ messages for access to desirable proffered
rewards in this life and ‗the next,‘ while the leaders need the followers to translate their
worldviews into secular structures that undertake social action. To the extent that these
worldviews, structures, and actions embody the paranoia, narcissism, delusions, and/or
sexual dysfunctions and idiosyncrasies of group leaders, they are especially unstable and
open to internal and external criticism.
As individuals come to categorize themselves as devotees or followers of particular
teachers, they accentuate or emphasize either people or things that they perceive to be
similar and people or things that they perceive to be different. According to self-
categorization theory in social psychology, this categorization-accentuation process
―highlights intergroup discontinuities, ultimately renders experience of the world
subjectively meaningful, and identifies those aspects which are relevant to action in a
particular context‖ (Hogg, Terry and White 1995:261). One aspect of this categorization
process is that ―[p]eople are essentially ‗depersonalized‘: they are perceived as, are reacted
to, and act as embodiments of the relevant in-group prototype rather than as unique
individuals‖ (Hogg, Terry and White 1995:261). When something happens to one or more
members that shifts group categorization of them from the in group to the out group, the
remaining in-group members have clear and immediate targets for hostility and aggression.
Such shifts in categorization may come about through a number of ways, initiated by
leaders‘ alteration of doctrines, internal scapegoating over a group failure, internal power
realignments among inner-circle elites, schisms (which may involve numerous ‗defectors‘),
or members‘ inability to continue the high costs of membership. Regardless of the reasons,
however, an out-group categorization gives in-group members a clear and direct target
against which they can enhance their own sense of similarity and solidarity, sometimes
through acts of violence.
A. Violence Resulting from People’s Alienation from Groups
Particularly visible targets for in-group members are clusters of former associates who now
define themselves as the true bearers of the master‘s teachings. Although former believers
who depart silently may present a challenge to remaining members if those members
believe in the universality of their teacher‘s message, a direct challenge comes from former
members who still claim allegiance to the spiritual master but assert that their way is the
true path. These people are schismatics, and members of the original group must silence
them because potentially they can ―proselytize among actual or potential adherents of that
group‖ (Coser 1974:109). Keeping in mind that many new religions form as schisms from
existing faiths (Stark and Bainbridge 1985:101-107), issues about hostile, violent, or
otherwise aggressive interactions between the old and new groups become indices of
danger. All of the issues that motivate division and divisiveness—money, authority,
legitimacy, property, doctrine, leadership-personality, and so on—amplify as participants
interpret them through religious hues, and danger increases as the stakes rise and the
disputants each claim God as their guide. Under these circumstances, shunning—acting as if
the other party were dead—may be a comparatively mild response, given that court action
and even interpersonal violence occasionally will occur. Rarely do disputes turn into gun
battles, but such battles indicate a willingness on the part of the disputants to translate
sectarian disputes into deadly confrontations.
B. Violence after Alignment with Groups and/or Traditions That Have Violent
Norms
As far back as 1971, social scientists have realized that previously nonviolent individuals
may become violent when they expect that their social roles call for it. In that year,
psychologists at Stanford University cut short (after six days) what was to have been a two-
week experiment in which college students enacted various social roles found in prison.