Expanding the Groupthink Explanation to the Study of Contemporary Cults
Author(s)
Wexler, Mark N.
Abstract
Prefacing that J. L. Janis’s groupthink model is the most frequently used model in studying group decision making, this paper critically reviews Janis’s model and seeks to evaluate its applicability to the study of decision making in cults. It is suggested that Janis’s model is found wanting. It fails to look at (1) how cult leaders, through the use of ordeals, draw a loyal, elite group of decision makers about them; (2) how the decision elite within a cult use a mechanism of social control based on guilt, fear, or shame to create deindividuation in cult members; (3) how the decision elite are imbued with the virtue of infallibility and how this is used to create enthusiastic conformity in cult members; and (4) how the wild premises and erratic decision making in the cult are facilitated by the awe in which the cult members hold the charismatic leader.
