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.
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.
