The Cult Phenomenon: A Turn of the Century Update

Violence in Ideological and Non‐Ideological Groups: A Quantitative Analysis of Qualitative Data1

“…Thus, Blazak (2001) has found that to offset high dropout rates, ideological groups will typically create strategies and structures to promote member recruitment. Not only do ideological organizations stress recruitment, they adopt practices and policies (e.g., training, mentoring) intended to replace extant systems for understanding events (i.e., sense breaking) with new interpretive frameworks (i.e., sense making) consistent with the organizations' ideology (Combs, 2003;Pratt, 2000;Schwartz & Kaslow, 2001). These organizational practices are typically subject to tight control and monitoring by a key leadership cadre (a form of clan control) known to be highly committed to the ideology (Strange & Mumford, 2002;Zawodny, 1983).…”

Studying Ideological Groups Online: Identification and Assessment of Risk Factors for Violence

“…On the other hand, research examining ideological groups specifically has tended to be more focused on hate groups and is more qualitative or ethnographic in nature, limiting the generalizability of these findings to other types of groups (i.e., nonideological groups, nonviolent groups, etc. ; e.g., Blazak, 2001;Ezekiel, 2002;Schwartz & Kaslow, 2001;Watts, 2001). Additionally, with more attention being given to groups with extreme ideologies and tendencies toward acts that are intended to evoke both terror and helplessness (Moghaddam & Marsella, 2004), more importance is being placed on gaining a better understanding of the social and psychological processes of these groups (Moghaddam, 2005).…”