International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 8 2025 6
obedient choice under Milgram-like conditions can,
therefore, be explained by the commitment made to
the first cooperating choice. If you have administered
the first shock, consistency and commitment will lead
you to give a higher shock. The smaller the increase in
demand, the better the commitment and consistency
heuristic will work.
The model presented here is also consistent with
Zablocki’s observations on exit costs (1998) and
Lalich’s bounded choice model (2000). Zablocki (1998)
proposed a model in which persuasion and control do
not operate in the recruitment phase, only in the later
phase in which members are kept in a movement by
the maximization over time of their exit costs. Truman
does not leave his small town because the cost is too
high: fear.
Furthermore, Lalich (2000), referring to the concept
of bounded rationality (as per Simon [1957]), shows
how the members of a destructive cult, given the
conditions of a self-sealing system, are led into a state
of bounded choice in which they make apparently
irrational decisions in a context. It is one, however, that
gives them meaning and is consistent with their highest
aspirations. This invokes the personal significance
given by the feeling of being part of a shared reality
in the radical ideology described by Kruglanski (2008).
Embracing the belief system of the movement to which
one belongs is crucial insofar as it tells individuals how
to act (Hardin &Higgins, 1996 Zartman &Anstey,
2012) according to self-referential norms (Turner,
1987) and even legitimizes terrorist violence by placing
it outside the sphere of immorality (Kruglanski et al.,
2013).
Seahaven and the Rat Park
Persuasion, therefore, takes place in rewarding
relational contexts, such as Truman’s Seahaven, which
allows it to have such a profound effect. In other
words, according to this socio-biological model, the
recruitment of members occurs through inclusion in
a cohesive and enjoyable relationship structure and
not through simple ideological persuasion. This is
congruent with the observation that often dogma or
theories are clarified and deepened only after potential
followers have been integrated into the group. In
an effective comparison, Lofland and Stark (1965)
expressed the idea that accepting the new belief system
is therefore tantamount to “accepting the opinion of
a friend” and is consistent with the identification of
love bombing in recruitment (Singer, 2003). Work on
cultic group identity also emphasizes the importance
of group cohesion and influence between like-minded
group members (Dubrow-Marshall, 2010), whose self-
identity becomes dominated over time by shared group
beliefs and norms.
An analogy can also be made with addiction—including
in Alexander et al.’s (1981) classic research on opioid
addiction, where two environments were created. The
first was the classic “rat in a cage,” which was given
morphine and left with a daily supply of the drug in
a vial. The second was a “rat paradise,” the Rat Park,
complete with toys, cans, running wheels, food, and
other forms of entertainment where rats could engage
in social and sexual relations.
The Rat Park also included a vial of morphine, initially
administered to the rats. The result was eloquent: the
rat in the cage stuck to the bottle and quickly developed
a drug addiction, losing interest in any other activity.
The Rat Park rats, after initial enthusiasm, abandoned
the bottle. Some returned every so often to consume
small amounts, but others did not even do that. “In
a larger and more interesting social environment, the
rat does not feel the need to take drugs,” the study
concludes. We can assume drugs are an effective escape
for a rat locked alone in a cage. It is an adaptation to
circumstances.
This is probably also the case in cult addiction, as
identified by Perlado (2003) as a potential Group
Dependence Disorder. The effectiveness of undue
persuasion increases under specific relational
conditions. The process is very similar to what has
just been described, as some people may give in to
persuasion because they live like a rat in a cage when
offered a Rat Park.
They are offered good artificial integration into a warm
and safe environment, but the Rat Park is just another
cage, one that feels more comfortable and good for
the rats but which excludes the possibility of the full
deployment of human possibilities and reduces the

ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54208/0008 7
range of opportunities to a minimum. It is the Seahaven
of The Truman Show, a cage with no apparent bars
and a blue sky drawn in the background. The slow
process of indoctrination takes place in this self-
selected and self-sealing context. The path exemplified
here leads us to consider the process of persuasion in
cults from a perspective that, from the above analysis,
has probably remained in the shadows. In practice,
one does not believe because one is persuaded to do
so and, therefore, is merely introduced into the group
(as per the attrition in recruitment identified by Barker
[1984] and Galanter [1979]). On the contrary, one is
persuaded because one has been inserted into the group
psychologically. This analysis goes back to the issue
of social influence and the concept of psychological
salience in self-categorization, according to Turner
(1987), whereby the social context and groups are
intrinsically rewarding and reinforcing an increasingly
dominant group identification (Dubrow-Marshall,
2010).
Although persuasion and inclusion can occur
simultaneously, the latter’s weight is temporally more
important at the beginning. Ideological indoctrination
acquires more weight over time. The more one is
willing to believe and act per the new beliefs, the more
gradually influential the persuasive process will be.
The difference from what has already been acquired
or done at each step will be minimal (and the urge to
defect will be delayed). Each of these steps will always
be chosen freely, in the same sense that the consumer
freely purchases products whose salience is modified
by marketing and framing (Lakoff, 2001). However,
the same people who go through the whole process by
continuous and gradual approximation would never
have freely chosen the final destination, i.e., dogmas
and related behaviors that are bounded (Lalich, 2000)
as per a rat cage, if they had been presented with this
as a single solution at the beginning. Manipulation is
everything in this gradient of free choice. The polarized
opposites in the literature arguably co-exist, as this
analysis indicates, and a more nuanced and thorough
approach to analyzing the evidence from research on
cults and coercive influence is thus called for.