The Power of Ideology

Researchers occasionally contact me for information in their efforts to poke and prod at the bubble of the Children of God/The Family International cult to try to see what held it together and what it was like on the inside.

The other day I was asked, “Did you get paid for your work?”

What a shocking question. Back in my cult days, I certainly didn’t think of my life from the perspective of earning a living. To think of it that way now drops me into the void of loss and regret. I probably could have earned a respectable living and set aside funds for both my retirement and my children's education had I not given thirty years of the prime of my life to the Children of God.

But alas, it was not to be.

My cult days were filled with service. In the early years, I would get out of my bed—or off of my sheet on the floor—put on a smile, and greet my fellow commune members, then sit down to a breakfast of barely yellow eggs, rice, and water. After devotions, which consisted of reading usually the newest Mo Letter from our founder, David Berg, we got ready to spend the day proselytizing.

From morning till night, we would knock on doors, sell cult-produced publications or products, then come home for dinner. After dishes there was more reading, perhaps some united singing, childcare, and bed. The next day, it all began again.

As the years passed, my work changed to caring for other people's children. But still, the ideology was the same. As part of the “body of Christ,” I was facilitating our missionary cause by schooling and looking after children, which was one of the many ministries that in sum furthered The Family's universal goal of bringing God's Kingdom on earth.

How could I have cheerfully gotten up each morning and faced not an iota of personal freedom? To diligently work, even to the point of nervous breakdown, for no money whatsoever? It was the adhesive of the Mo Letters that held the group together and kept us going.

Each day, we spent hours studying Family publications or our Bibles, which we read through the lens of the Mo Letters and Berg's interpretation. Our conviction drove us. Our united cause drove us. We were part of a worldwide group with an exclusive calling, God's Endtime army. We were to be willing to do anything for Jesus, sleep with strangers to “show them God's love,” beg on the streets, care for other people's children 24/7, whatever it took, to promote the cause.

The intensity and strength of a clear belief system should never be underestimated. It can lead to people becoming “new creatures,” completely different from their former selves, with a new set of values, priorities, and goals. Ideology can overcome familial ties, motherly protective instincts, and it can create slaves out of otherwise rational people.

But what is the appeal? What draws people to cults and other controlling groups? The lure of a strong code of belief and a common cause worthy of fighting for, giving a noble purpose and direction to one's life. What keeps them? Camaraderie and a united goal, a sense of purpose, belonging and being part of something of epic proportions. On top of this, there is the myriad of human tendencies: the false valuation of life in the group, the confirmation bias, social norming, loss aversion, sunk cost, and maybe even inertia. One's sense of what is normal becomes completely skewed.

What of conflicting evidence? What if a true believer is shown proof that his faith is unfounded? It is the nature of humanity when confronted with evidence that contradicts our firmly held beliefs to cling defensively to those beliefs. Faith becomes enmeshed with our personal image. Our beliefs become a part of us and who we are. It would be like tearing out a part of ourselves to give them up.

The only way to “rescue” someone from a firmly held belief is to separate them from the constant input and influence of dogma. To dilute the poison of propaganda by distance and by providing a wide variety of information, some of which will contradict and show other sides to what they have been holding dear. But this must be handled gently, with compassion and understanding, because this is a matter of the will and the psyche, of the very essence of who one is.

Trust must be won. There must be a gradual rebuilding of mental pathways and a growing over of the old habitual ones learned in the cult. This requires time, patience, and the nurturing of a desire to learn.

Extracting a Cultist

One might naturally think that to change someone's valued belief all that is necessary would be to show them another side. It's not so easy.

If you've read my other blog posts, you can see that there are very compelling reasons why people cling to a belief. Beliefs can easily become part of our very identities. The higher the personal cost in adopting the belief, the more we value it, and the tighter we cling. The years we hold that belief add up into sunk cost, and we figure we need to keep on - we've already put so much into it. Loss aversion comes into play, and we just don't want to give it up.

Briefly, most decisions, beliefs included, are made as a result of emotional pull. We later tell ourselves all sorts of good-sounding, rational reasons why we made that decision, but the fact is that our brains are hard-wired to naturally move by emotion. Smart people can come up with many more reasons than others to support their beliefs.

Once a decision is made, you have the need for consistency - no one likes disconfirming evidence and the uncomfortable dissonance that causes in the mind - as well as the confirmation bias, that makes us see only things that confirm our belief and literally not see what would disconfirm it.

"It is extremely rare for someone to simply abandon a valued belief when confronted with disconfirming information. In fact, recent psychological research shows that when this happens, people tend to hold the erroneous belief even more strongly." - Daniel Kahneman

So, what to do? How to help someone stuck in an obviously false and dangerous belief?

I think the only way to do it is to get them to step away completely - change their environment and surroundings - and then new views can work their magic. It was hard for me, because I had invested so many years into the group - all that sunk cost, and the false valuation I placed on my life in the cult. Moving away from big communes was the first step. Then my months of living away from the cult gave me a taste of freedom and helped me not want to live with other Family members ever again. The next important step was spending less and less time reading the publications. Finally, my mind was clear enough to see the truth in the British court statement, and I could call it quits.

Clinging Tightly

Closely related to loss aversion is the endowment effect, where we highly value things we possess. In loss aversion, we cling to what we have, not wanting to part with it. With the endowment effect, things we possess gain value merely by virtue of possession. This also can be applied to belief.

Daniel Kahneman repeated Richard Thaler's classic experiment with coffee cups many times, always with the same results. It is a simple demonstration of the endowment effect.

"Mugs were distributed randomly to half the participants. The Sellers had their mug in front of them, and the Buyers were invited to look at their neighbor's mug; all indicated the price at which they would trade. The Buyers had to use their own money to acquire a mug. The results were dramatic: the average selling price [determined by the one possessing the mug] was about double the average buying price [the price a buyer deemed he would be willing to pay for that mug], and the estimated number of trades was less than half of the number predicted by standard theory."

More than a coffee mug, beliefs are things that we cling to. We don't want to part with them; it is like they are a part of us and who we are. We gave up our former lives and our families for those beliefs. They cost us a lot. We value more highly things that require more effort to attain.

COG members were required to "witness," i.e. try to convince others of the value of our beliefs. Like the techniques used in multi-level marketing, the more we worked to "sell" our religion to others, the more we treasured it ourselves.

What of disconfirming evidence? 

"It is extremely rare for someone to simply abandon a valued belief when confronted with disconfirming information. In fact, recent psychological research shows that when this happens, people tend to hold the erroneous belief even more strongly." Daniel Kahneman

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