Bounded Choice

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Title Bounded Choice
Hardcover Edition
Bounded Choice
Author Janja Lalich
Country United States
Language English
Subject(s) Cults
Genre(s) nonfiction
psychology
cults
Publisher University of California Press
Released September 15, 2004
Media type Paperback
Pages 353
ISBN ISBN 0-520-24018-9
Preceded by Captive Hearts, Captive Minds,
Cults in Our Midst

Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults is a nonfiction psychology book on cults, by Janja Lalich, Ph.D.. The book was published by University of California Press in 2004. Dr. Lalich's methodologies were influenced by the work of Anthony Giddens, Herbert Simon and Robert Jay Lifton[1]. The Heaven's Gate cult is used as a model for analyzing the cult structure.

Lalich develops a new approach for understanding how charismatic cult leaders are able to dominate their devotees. Lalich’s definitional framework includes a charismatic authority, an overarching ideology with a transformational component, and social-psychological influences and controls that bind members to the group, engendering a total commitment on the part of those followers who become "true believers."

—Marion Harmon, Demystifying Cults[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lorne L. Dawson, American Journal of Sociology, vol.111, part 1 (2005), pg. 663–665
  2. ^ Marion Harmon, Demystifying Cults, Chico Statements, California State University.

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[edit] See also