New Religious Movement Membership and the Importance of Stable ‘Others' for the Making of Selves

Challenging the view that people join New Religious Movements because they have fallen victim to powerful brainwashing techniques, the analysis of in-depth life history interviews of 23 former members from 11 different Australian ‘cults' suggests that membership was personally negotiated and mo...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. VerfasserIn: Coates, Dominiek (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: Springer Science + Business Media B. V. [2014]
In: Journal of religion and health
Jahr: 2014, Band: 53, Heft: 5, Seiten: 1300-1316
weitere Schlagwörter:B New Religious Movements
B Self-change
B Social connectedness
B Cults
B Symbolic interactionism
Online Zugang: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Challenging the view that people join New Religious Movements because they have fallen victim to powerful brainwashing techniques, the analysis of in-depth life history interviews of 23 former members from 11 different Australian ‘cults' suggests that membership was personally negotiated and motivated by a desire for stronger social connections, albeit for different reasons. While for some participants, a desire for social connectedness was related to a strong need for guidance and direction from ‘stable' others, for others it reflected a desire for self-change or self-enhancement. To make sense of the participant narratives, symbolic interactionist understandings of the self are applied.
ISSN:1573-6571
Enthält:Enthalten in: Journal of religion and health
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10943-013-9715-0