Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 26
increase predictability, and maintain a sense of order, ensures that we attach great
importance to the reduction of uncertainty during our interactions with others (Jones,
1990).
In order to reduce uncertainty, we develop an increased tendency towards hasty
generalizations, the formation of rapid judgments about people, crude social
categorizations, stereotyping, and the ready embrace of simplistic political slogans. Error is
implicit in the process. For example, we may ―brutalize‖ reality when an object, person, or
event is conscripted into a category, despite characteristics it possesses which do not belong
there (Bruner &Potter, 1964). We may also attribute emotions to the ―object‖ which it does
not hold (e.g., a hatred of all whites), but which we imagine are common to the
interchangeable members of the category (Snyder &Uranowitz, 1978). Nevertheless, our
confidence in such misperceptions tends to be high.
Some such stereotyping is inevitable. All of us bring considerable existing knowledge with us
to any new interaction. Such knowledge includes person prototypes (what this person is
typically like), role schemas (what someone playing this role is most likely to do) and typical
event sequences or scripts (what most often happens in this situation). In particular, the
fastest way to reduce uncertainty in an unfamiliar social context is to stereotype the other
people involved by assuming that they belong to a readily identifiable category (Leyens et
al., 1994). We rely less on person prototypes and more on role schemas and typical event
sequences. Stereotypes assume that individuals share more behaviors, personality traits,
and beliefs with other people in their category than they actually do. Stereotyping helps us
to simplify social reality, and so reduces uncertainty.
It is then assumed that members of the designated category share this essence with each
other. In turn, this strengthens the tendency to exaggerate similarities between the
members of the social category concerned, while underplaying their differences. We also
assume that members of the category concerned are more different from people in other
categories than is actually the case. For those who adhere to a belief system such as
Christian Identity, the problem is that their stereotypes seek to explain everything, and are
immune to corrective input from the outside world. Again, the psychological dynamic is
similar to that found in many Marxist-Leninist sects that are gripped by apocalyptic
expectations and certain that the philosophy of dialectical materialism explains all
conceivable phenomena, from the Big Bang to fluctuations in the business cycle.
Stereotyping, as discussed here, underpins the whole process of ethnic generalization and
prejudice formation. In particular, it has obvious implications for our understanding of right
wing extremism, with its evident bias towards racism.
The impact of stereotyping individuals, groups, and events can also be understood in terms
of attribution theory (Hewstone, 1991). This proposes that we constantly attribute both
intention and disposition to the actions of other people. The problem is that we cannot
directly discern what their intentions and dispositions are. To our frustration, what goes on
in people‘s heads remains largely inaccessible. Not to be defeated, we by-pass this difficulty
by taking the route known as creative theorizing. In social situations, this assumes the form
of gossip and rumor. Gossip becomes stories, in which we frequently construct plausible
causal connections between unconnected events in order to lend extra coherence to our
view of the world (Dawes, 2001). Plainly, plausibility is not the same thing as accuracy, and
stories do not have to be accurate to feel plausible. The purpose behind their construction is
the reduction of uncertainty. Rather than admit that we do not know what is happening,
most of us have a tendency to speculate. When we share such speculations with others we
engage in self-persuasion (Pratkanis &Aronson, 1991). In addition, research suggests that
we have a tendency to believe that whatever is repeated is more likely to be true (Cialdini,
2001). Furthermore, if those we talk to acknowledge that what we say might be correct, we

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 27
grow even more convinced that our musings have some basis in fact. The more people who
share an opinion with us, the more convinced we become that it must be accurate, an
entirely vacuous reasoning process known as consensual validation (Zebrowitz, 1990).
In the world of the far right all these processes can be seen at work. Gossip and rumor are
rife. Furthermore, real evidence is irrelevant. Every event is interpreted as proof of the
underlying conspiratorial theory, whatever the facts actually suggest. When ideas are
liberated from the constraints of evidence-based argument in this manner, unsubstantiated
gossip becomes the mainstay of human conversation. Furthermore, internal gatherings on
the far right (in common with those of most cult organizations) exclude dissenters. This
ensures that True Believers constantly share bogus stories that have one redeeming
featurethey are all consistent with the belief system. Self-persuasion is thus rampant.
Furthermore, the spectacle is one of many people agreeing with each other. Consensual
validation takes root. By these means, the weed of conformity is watered thrice daily and
bathed in perpetual sunshine.
The conspiracy theories ardently promoted by the Christian Identity movement encourage
rampant social categorization. The attribution process then becomes a means of assigning
predictable intentions and dispositions to large numbers of people. True Believers no longer
need to know precisely what other people really think, believe, and intend to do. It is
sufficient to know which category they belong to. In the process, all political life is
conceptualized as nothing more than the orderly working out of whatever theory the cult‘s
worldview has ordained as ―the truth.‖ Evidence and further analysis is irrelevant. What
remains is the need for organization, total unanimity around a few simplistic but compelling
myths, hyperactivity, and the frantic quest for wider political influence.
Conclusion and Implications
Increasingly, the incitement promulgated by Identity theologians is enacted on the streets.
Between 1991 and 1995 there were 4046 pipe bomb incidents in the US (Stern, 1996).
Members of Aryan Nations have been accused of murder, conducting armored car robberies,
and staging over 20 bank robberies to finance a white supremacist revolution (Preston,
1999). A far right organization known as The Order staged two major robberies in the
1980s, netting over $4 million, and was implicated in the 1984 murder of the Jewish talk
show host, Alan Berg (Cox, 1998). The Order‘s founder, killed in a shoot out with the FBI,
expressed his belief system in a letter written shortly before his demise, that clearly echoes
the concerns of the Christian Identity movement. He feared that his son would grow up to
―be a stranger in his own land, a blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan in a country populated
mainly by Mexicans, mulattoes, blacks and Asians‖ (Ridgeway, 1990, p.96).
As we have seen, supremacist organizations and cults thrive on a diet of Armageddon, of
imminent End Times, of a final confrontation between the races. If they alone adhered to
such a perspective then their influence would undoubtedly remain limited. However,
apocalyptic visions of the future are widely held in American society. A recent survey found
that 59% of American adults feared that the world would come to an end (Dyer, 1998).
Twelve percent of those surveyed believed it would happen within the next few years. It is
of course true that the influence of the far right is severely limited by its designation of
many potential supporters as out-groups, and its consequent fragmentation (Bruce, 1995).
Nevertheless, a lot of people, when they think of the future, tremble in fear. The
propagandists of hate play daily with matches in a room packed with explosives.
In addition, we have attempted to suggest that many of the psychological dynamics that
underlie prejudice formation (e.g., uncertainty reduction, stereotyping, expectancy effects)
are not limited to members of hate groups. Rather, they are practiced to a greater or lesser
extent by most of us. For this reason, explanations of right wing activism that focus solely
on personality seem unsatisfactory. Moreover, it enables us to engage in stereotyping