SOC 257: New Religious Movements Lectures
University of Virginia
Department of Sociology
Jeffrey K. Hadden

Leaving NRMs
Social Science Perspetives

Lecture Outline:

• Introduction
• Conceptualizing Defection
• Methodological Issues
• Theoretical Issues
• Empirical Knowledge About Leaving New Religions
• Suggested Readings

Part I: Introduction

Introduction

The high visibility of NRMs from the late 1960s heightened interest in why people joined.

A rich literature has emerged on joining, but relatively little attention has been devoted leaving NRMs. This is ironic in light of the fact that skepticism about the "brainwashing" thesis was a significant factor in attracting many scholars to engage in research on NRMs.

Two scholars stand out for pioneering research on leaving religious groups:

Helen Rose Ebaugh, and Stuart Wright Ebaugh's initial research was on women who left religious orders during the 1960s. Wright studied persons who left three different religious groups:

Children of God

Moonies

Hare Krishnas

Wright and Ebaugh collaborated on an article assessing the literature on leaving NRMs that appeared in the Handbook of Cults and Sects in America edited by David Bromley and Jeffrey Hadden. This lecture closely follows the outline of the Wright and Ebaugh article.

Part II: Conceptualizing Defection

Conceptualizing Defection

• Disaffection
• Disillusionment
• Disaffiliation

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  Disaffection = Affective

  • Emotional withdrawal
  • Deterioration of affective bonds

  Disillusionment = Cognitive

  • Disbelief, doubt
  • Withdrawal of moral autority of leaders

  Disaffiliation = Social Organization

  • Severance of ties of membership

Part III: Methodological Issues

Methodological Issues

• Retrospective reporting
• Social and organizaational factors in reconstruction
• Tempral variability

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  Retrospective Reporting

  • Biography is constantly being reconstructed
  • Retrospective accounts may tell us more about how the individual now interprets involvement than what actually happened.
  • Persons who left voluntarily are especially likely to view the experience negatively in conformity to the view of parents who had them removed.

  Social and Organizational Factors in Reconstruction

  [Refers both to social and organizational factors in the group left behind as well as social and organizational affiliations after leaving.]

  • Example #1:
    • A departing nun may give as her reason for leaving: "the Church was not responsive to demands for change."
    • Participation in a support group after leaving may lead her to conclude: "I needed space to grow."
  • Example #2:
    • A person leaving a high demand NRM may, on leaving, conclude: "I didn't have the stuff it takes to be a truly committed member.
    • A retrospetive view after encountering "exit counselors" may lead to the conclusion that "I was manipulated and presured to make committments that were not in my interests but, rather, in the interest of leaders whose motives were less than pure."

    Note in both examples the individual is drawing perspective and interpretation from organizations and individuals with whom he or she is interacting.

  Temporal Variability

  • The passing of time offers perspective that may significantly alter the way one feels about the group.
  • It may also alter one's perceptions about how one felt at the time of departure
  • Persons who don't seem to be able to get on with their lives are more likely to harbor resentment and blame the group for their current situation.

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  Proposition time:
  
  

  PROPOSITION:	The more successful the transition to other roles, the less likely the individual will interpret their experience in the NRM in negative terms.
  PROPOSITION:	The more successful the transition to other roles, the more likely one's experience in the "cult" will diminish in signifiance for the individual.

  Why do you think these propostions are likely to be true? Or, if you doubt that they are correct, why do you think so?

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  Summary of Methodological Observations

  • Three major issues impact the validity of the accounts people offer of their experience in an NRM:
    • Retrospective reporting
    • Social and organizational factors influencing reconstruction
    • Temporal variabiliy of accounts
  • Since each of these factors may impact how people recall their membership in a group, accounts of leaving need to be treated as data for anlaysis .
  • Scholars cannot assume information provided is accurate, but neither should they assume it is not accurate. Assessing the validity of information is necessarily a difficult task; one that is likely influenced by what the research brings to the task in terms of presuppositions.

Part IV: Theoretical Issues

Theoretical Perspectives on Leaving Religious Movements

• Role Theory
• Causal Process Model
• Social Movement Theory
• Psychosocial Disruption

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  A. Role Theory

  • Defection as Role Exiting
  • Incorporation an Ex-status
    • Disengaging from a formally meaningful role
    • Reestablishing identify in a new role
  • Role Residual
  • "hangover identity"
  • "guilt" for having abandoned a commitment
  • Societal Reactions
  • Shifting Friendship Networks

  B. Causal Process Model

  [Views Defection as Sequential Disengagement; an analogue to the sequential engagement when joining]

  • Crisis
  • Review and reflection
  • Disaffection
  • Withdrawal
  • Cognitive transformation
  • Cognitive reorganization

    Crisis Factors That Could Precipitate Disaffection:

    1. Breakdown of insulation from outside
    2. Development of unofficial and unregulated dyadic relationship
    3. Perceived lack of success in achieving world transforming activities
    4. Inconsistencies between actions of leaders and the ideals they symbolically represent
    5. Affective pull of friends, family
    6. DISCOVERY of an alternative belief system

  C. Social Movement Theory

  • People attracted by the group's promise of world transformation
  • As group progresses, it's world transformation goals are usually restructured, sometime abandoned.
  • Individual members may become disillusioned or disaffected because:
  • they come to doubt the world transforming ideals
  • new goals of group different from those that initially attracted the individual to the group
  • the group abandons initial world transforming goals

  D. Psychosocial Disruption

  • Expulsion
  • Extraction

    Expulsion

    • Insubordination, challenges to authority
    • Rule violations
    • Individual a burden to the group
      • incapacity to care for self
      • a real nerd

    Extraction

    • Involuntarily removed
    • Voluntarily removed

Part V: Empirical Knowledge About Leaving NRMs

What do we know about people who leave NRMs?

1. The "brainwashing" model argues:

• Leaving is extremely difficult
• Successful exit requires skilled counseling
• Even then, psychological scars are likely to remain.

2. We learned earlier that proponents of the brainwashing model lack empirical evidence to support their theory of brainwashing.

3. So also are they lacking empirical support for alleged consequences of having been a member of a cult or sect.

4. Their accounting of what happens to ex-members is contradicted by substantial empirical evidence:

• The overwhelming proportion of people who get involved in NRMs do leave---most short of two years.
• The overwhelming proportion of people leave of their own volition.
• Wright study found that two-thirds [67%] felt "wiser for the experience."

5. How one leaves can have a significant difference in the nature of adjustment

• James Lewis studied 154 persons who left NRMs.
• They left by different paths and...
• They experienced dramatically different mental health consequences
  The ex-members studied by Lewis left by three different methods:
  • Involuntary exit counseling
  • Voluntary exit counseling
  • On their on volition without any counseling

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    Study the handout sheet which identifies Groups "A," "B," and "C" along with the kind of "post cult" distress symptoms listed. Which group received "involuntary" exit conseling, which received "voluntary" exit counseling, and which group received no counseling at all? Be prepared to defend you conclusions at the beginning of our next class session.

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