Summary: A New Religion Movement

“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.

Stanley MIlgram is a Yale University social psychologist who wrote “Behavioral Study of Obedience”, an article which granted him many awards and is now considered a landmark. In this piece, he evaluates the extent to which a participant is willing to conform to an authority figure who commands him to execute acts that conflict with his moral beliefs. Milgram discovers that the majority of participants do obey to authority. In this research, the subjects are misled because they are part of a learning experience that is not about what they are told. This experiment was appropriate despite this. Throughout the process, subjects are exposed to various signs that show them

This article reiterates that no one is immune to the complex psychological manipulation process that cult leaders in order to recruit new members. All cults around the world use similar tricks when it comes to recruiting and keeping members. Parsi (2015) states that there are many misconceptions about cults that scholars need to know when studying cultic groups. The first misconceptions is that cult members wear strange clothes and are easy to spot but that is not necessarily the case. The other misconceptions about cults are that the members are emotionally unstable, weird, religious nutcases and weak. There are up to four major categories of cults and these include religious, self-help, commercial and political cults. According to the definition of a cult in the previous two articles, it is a clear that there is psychological manipulation by cult leaders in order to gain the control of a member’s mind. In order to control their members, cult leaders use psychological techniques such as mind control. Cult leaders threaten their members that they are likely to fail in business, lose their families and friends or go to hell if they leave the group or fail to conform to

Dr. Furnham analyses the reasons why individuals join cults. In his initial assessment, he argues that certain benefits that cults can offer such as connections, an identity, and a chance to contribute. Throughout his article, Dr. Furnham questions if the motives are similar to groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, or the Order of the Solar Temple He

Media has often shown religious cults to be a form of devil worshipping or pagan rituals. The reality is there are a multitude of religious cults ranging in varying numbers of followers. All of them are potential dangerous, and can cause consequences for the followers of their cult. Following a religious cult leads to a dependence towards its teachings, conducting a cult’s practices, and affecting society.

According to Merriam-Webster, a cult is, “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.” Although, this is not the most accurate defining factor, as different interpretations can lead to different viewpoints, such as variability and cultural taboos. A more precise definition orients cults as, “a structured group, most of whose members demonstrate unquestioned loyalty to a dynamic leader.”(Ankerberg). Religions and cults differ due to the direction of their primary focus. As well as this, most cults are based upon a general religious belief, but do not always have to be so traditional. Individual temples do not revere rabbis to a radical extreme, as also in the case of Christianity and Islam. In the case of the People’s Temple, Pastor Jim Jones was revered as a prophet sent from god, and his word was final. Cults operate in a closed social system that aims to please the agenda of the leader. They do not serve the community outside of themselves as a priority, as most all of the strength is focused within. Often, leader govern most all aspects of the lives of his or her followers, usually forcing a barrier between the world outside and the world of the

Unfortunately, the hypothesis wasn’t clearly mentioned in the research paper. However, it could be easily predicted that the hypothesis is surrounding the topic that most people who join cults believe that the cults are morally good and healthy for them. The prediction is based on the fact that the articles states that most cultic members are derived from normal family environments instead of having a troubled past. Also, the researcher focuses on the attitudes of joining a cult, which in the interview ranged from, “ strong desire to join,” “ I don’t know it arose”, and “ I was

09 Found dead in Jonestown,Guyana South America from Kool aid flavored cyanide, screams headline news November, 18 1979.What seems to be a peaceful New religion movement started in California for People in search for Hope and relief in Desperate Times from the Social inequalities, Unjust Killing, poverty ,and despair during the late sevendys to early eightie.In the beginning people promise utopia “a perfect society” tens to hundreds of single mothers ,blacks, homosexuals and families all alike dropped their lives to flocking onto planes for a vision of the good life. Over a thousand people join of what was known as the “Peoples Temple”. This entire Religious Movement was run by one man said to be the “Deliver of Peace ,Shepherd of his

While it is true that Hunter (1998) gives a significant definition as to why young people are more prone to join cults in that they have a more “open mind,” a more recent study goes even more in depth as to how cults recruit people to become members ands subsequently convince them to stay within the cult. This particular study provides evidence that the one thing that convinces—or subsequently does not convince—someone to join a cult is an individual’s relationship with those close to them, particularly if those individuals approve or disapprove of cults (Almendros, Carrobles, & Rodríguez-Carballeira, 2007). This suggests that in order for cults to be efficient in gathering new members—especially those ranging from 18-23—it is imperative to either make a connection with that individual’s family or propose the cult ideology to the individual (who then conveys this information to the family) in such a way that is not so widely viewed as negative (Almendros et al., 2007). Wright & Piper (1986) also concur this point, even to go as far as to say that opinions of significant others and close family members are two of the most deciding factors with regard to whether or not someone would join a

In order to get attention of someone quick or to gain the persuasion of others who do not wish to think there are particular tactics to use persuasion. The peripheral route comes as one of two models in order to gain persuasion for a certain subset of uses for particular conditions and has its use particularly described in the aforementioned sentence. This side of the model provides what the cognitively aware central model cannot through methodologically grabbing attention, becoming quickly understood, and appealing to primal or emotional appeal (i.e. sex appeal). It is in this utility that the peripheral model helps provide a foundation for either persuasion or the ability to retaliate against persuasion tactics, and the tactic itself comes used throughout models of persuasion everywhere.

a) Since there were so many people preaching in New York about hellfire it was

Today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad. We are taught that we should all do what we’re told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people. Society tells us this, but it is not true. Most people will even be obedient to the point of causing harm to others, because to be disobedient requires the courage to be alone against authority. In Stanley Milgram’s "Perils of Obedience" experiment, his studies showed that sixty percent of ordinary people would agree to obey an authority figure even to the point of severely hurting another human being. (Milgram 347).

In many ways, the art of persuasion is as much about changing the way you come

People often use persuasion to get what they want by moving consciousness. This happens by convincing another person to take on a different attitude in their belief system. However, some people use persuasion for manipulative purposes while others use it to give direction and change their reality.