Social key question Flashcards
What is your key question for Social Psychology?
How can Social Psychology explain cult behaviour?
What is AO1 for your Social key question?
What cults are and why they are an issue for society
What is AO2 for your key question?
Applying Social Psychology theories to explain cult behaviour
Give an example of a cult and what happened
People’s Temple of San Francisco, a cult whose members committed mass suicide in Guyana.
The Manson family killed people on behalf of their leader Charles Manson.
What is a cult?
a social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practice
follow a strong, living leader and make absolute claims about the leader’s abilities, character, or knowledge
Often financially dependent
What is AO3 for your Social key question?
Evaluation of how well our Social theories explain cult behaviour
Why are cults a key issue for society?
There are over 500 active cults within the UK.
We need to be aware of what causes individuals to join and remain in cults in order to prevent the horrors that have occurred in cults previously.
How can agency theory explain cult behaviour?
the cult members are in the agentic state and obey the leader as they view them as an authority figure
give up their free-will to avoid moral strain of going against their conscience.
How can social impact theory explain cult behaviour?
Strength can be seen because they view the cult leader as being an authority figure (often with divine links).
Immediacy can be seen as an issue because they all live together and thus have an impact.
Number is important because they end up surrounded by believers which means they have a hihh impact
How can social identity theory explain cult behaviour?
Cult members view themselves as the ingroup and anyone not in the cult as the outgroup.
May show identification by dressing the same, having the same beliefs etc.
Social comparison
What did Bromley find and why is this a weakness?
studied the Unification Church and found only 5% were still working with the church 1 year later.
Suggests cults are not an issue in society.
