- Title
- New religious movement membership and the importance of stable 'others' for the making of selves
- Creator
- Coates, Dominiek D.
- Relation
- Journal of Religion and Health Vol. 53, Issue 5, p. 1300-1316
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-013-9715-0
- Publisher
- Springer
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- 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.
- Subject
- new religious movements; cults; symbolic interactionism; social connectedness; self-change
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1063156
- Identifier
- uon:17211
- Identifier
- ISSN:0022-4197
- Language
- eng
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