Sunshine Sentinel

Stephanie Mallinas’s The Psychology of Cults class divides into groups of four or five students to discuss why people became followers of such notorious figures as David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, and Charles Manson and his Manson Family.

The students bring up concepts such as validation, a sense of belonging and what actually defines a cult.

And then someone mentions Mary Kay Inc., a $3 billion multilevel marketing company known for its cosmetics. “Well,” says one student, “in some ways it fits.

”Why do people join cults? How do cult leaders attract members? Are some people more susceptible to cult influence than others? What exactly makes a group a cult? All of these questions are at the center of The Psychology of Cults, an inaugural Eckerd College Winter Term course taught by Assistant Professor of Psychology Stephanie Mallinas, Ph.D. The College offered more than 60 Winter Term courses this year, nearly half of them abroad, from Jan. 3–27.“When I teach Social Psychology, we talk about social influence and group processes,” Mallinas explains. “Last spring the students did a little activity applying these concepts to cults. They really enjoyed it. I knew I needed to come up with a Winter Term course that was a little nontraditional, and I thought there would be a lot to talk about in a class on cults.”There is.“I’m interested in the mysterious, dark things in our world, things we have negative perceptions of,” says John Ormsby, a junior environmental studies student from Chandler, Arizona, who is taking Mallinas’s class. “I took Religion, Magic and Occultism last year and was just fascinated by it. And this class has taught me that there’s so much more to what we think a cult is. We usually only see the drama or destruction, but some cults are passive and peaceful and made up of people who are just looking for other people to look up to and guidance in their life.

“I also learned that the language involved is important. We have abstract words we just throw out that can confuse the public, so that what is considered to be a cult can get very jumbled. Alcoholics Anonymous, WeightWatchers, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts … they can all be considered a cult by some definitions.”

Original source can be found here.