From Table 2: Inductive coding of mechanisms of domination and control in coercive groups.

McIvor, P., McIvor, C., Spencer, R., & Lalich, J. (2025). Beyond belief: Responding to cults and high-control groups. Survivors of Coercive Cults and High-Control Groups (SOCCHG) & Stop Religious Coercion Australia (SRCA).

For the Victorian Inquiry into Cultic Practices.

1. Belief modification: gradually reshaping what members believe by rewarding compliance and punishing doubt.
2. Behavior modification: shaping conduct through rewards and punishments (e.g. praise for obedience, humiliation for dissent).
3. Behavioral conditioning: using repetitive drills or rituals to create automatic compliance.
4. Behavioral control: setting strict rules about dress, speech, food, work, sex, or daily habits.
5. Binary cognition: forcing black-and-white thinking (good vs evil, us vs them) so nuance and complexity are erased.
6. Bodily regulation: controlling diet, sleep, exercise, sexuality, or even posture to instil discipline and conformity.
7. Cognitive overload: flooding members with too much information, activity, or contradiction so they cannot process effectively.
8. Cognitive restriction: limiting what people are allowed to think about; discouraging or punishing curiosity or doubt.
9. Communication control: restricting who people can talk to, what topics can be discussed, or how communication is framed.
10. Compelled confession: requiring members to reveal secrets or “sins,” often later used against them.
11. Critical thought suppression: actively discouraging analysis, doubt, or questioning, presenting it as disloyal or harmful.
12. Deceptive messaging: using half-truths or selective information to attract and retain members.
13. Denial of personhood: treating members as roles or resources rather than individuals with rights and autonomy.
14. Divine legitimation: claiming authority comes directly from God, spirits, or higher powers, so it cannot be challenged.
15. Doctrine over identity: teaching that a person’s identity is defined only through the group’s beliefs and practices.
16. Doctrinal absolutism: the belief that teachings are infallible and cannot be revised.
17. Doctrinal supremacy: the group’s teachings override science, personal experience, or external authority.
18. Emotional volatility: deliberately provoking emotional highs and lows to destabilise members and make them dependent.
19. Enforced dependency: ensuring members feel they cannot cope without the group’s support or approval.
20. Environmental coercion: using the physical setting (e.g. noise, lighting, sleep deprivation) to pressure compliance.
21. Environmental isolation: physically separating members from family, friends, or the outside world.
22. Exclusion by purity: defining worthiness by strict purity standards that separate insiders from outsiders.
23. Fear and guilt manipulation: combining threats of punishment or catastrophe with guilt to block resistance.
24. Financial exploitation: extracting money through tithes, fees, or “donations,” often escalating over time.
25. Forced recruitmen: pressuring members to recruit others under threat of judgement or loss of status.
26. Goal-driven indoctrination: tying teaching to a fixed end (e.g. salvation, enlightenment) so progress equals loyalty.
27. Group elitism: fostering the belief that the group is special, chosen, or uniquely enlightened.
28. Guilt manipulation: making people feel responsible for the group’s struggles or failures.
29. Guilt/shame manipulation: instilling shame about personal flaws or mistakes to keep people submissive.
30. Hierarchical reinforcement: embedding obedience into the group structure so authority always flows downward.
31. Ideological supremacy: presenting the group’s worldview as the ultimate truth, making alternatives unthinkable.
32. Ideological totalism: demanding the ideology be applied to every aspect of life.
33. Identity prescription: assigning people fixed roles or labels that dictate how they must see themselves.
34. Information censorship: restricting access to outside sources (books, media, internet) that might challenge the group.
35. Information segregation: keeping people in silos (e.g. “you’re not ready for this teaching yet”) to prevent full understanding.
36. Internal surveillance: monitoring members’ communications or activities to enforce conformity.
37. Leader centrality: making the leader the focus of all group activity, teachings, and decisions.
38. Leader reverence: requiring rituals of respect (titles, greetings, deference) to reinforce status.
39. Leader worship: encouraging adoration of the leader as uniquely wise or infallible.
40. Loaded language: insider jargon and emotionally charged words that restrict how issues can be understood.
41. Mental disruption: using techniques (e.g. chanting, confrontations, sleep loss) to weaken critical thinking.
42. Moral absolutism: framing issues as rigidly right or wrong, defined solely by the group.
43. Normative enforcement: punishing or rewarding behaviour based on strict group norms, making conformity automatic.
44. Out-group denial: portraying outsiders as inferior, dangerous, or irrelevant.
45. Peer-enforced norms: members policing each other’s behaviour, reducing the need for direct leadership enforcement.
46. Phobia conditioning: implanting irrational fears of leaving (e.g. illness, failure, damnation).
47. Psychological coercion: using intimidation, guilt, or pressure to force compliance without physical violence.
48. Psychological structuring: supplying frameworks and categories that replace members’ independent judgement.
49. Punishment of dissent: retaliating against questioning or criticism through humiliation or exclusion.
50. Repetitive indoctrination: drilling messages by constant repetition until they become automatic.
51. Routine control: filling members’ days with scheduled activities to limit free time or outside influence.
52. Salvation promise: holding out the ultimate reward (eternal life, healing, transcendence) as conditional on loyalty.
53. Social contact control: regulating who members can talk to, when, and about what.
54. Social context manipulation: arranging settings (retreats, intense events) that amplify suggestibility.
55. Social influence: pressure from leaders or peers to conform, presented as “normal.”
56. Social restriction: limiting members’ social life to other members, often by overloading schedules.
57. Structural control: formal rules or systems that keep authority firmly in leadership’s hands.
58. Support severance: cutting ties with family, friends, or colleagues outside the group.
59. Suppression of doubt: treating questions or hesitations as weakness, betrayal, or proof of resistance.
60. Thought-terminating language: stock phrases (“don’t be negative,” “trust the process”, “everything happens for a reason) that shut down questioning.
61. Time domination: monopolizing members’ schedules so little remains for outside life.
62. Unaccountable leadership: leaders operate without checks or oversight, above rules or morality.
63. Us-vs-them framing: dividing the world into insiders and outsiders, making loyalty feel like survival.

Citation: Table 2 – Inductive coding of mechanisms of domination and control in coercive groups

McIvor, P., McIvor, C., Spencer, R., & Lalich, J. (2025). Beyond belief: Responding to cults and high-control groups. Survivors of Coercive Cults and High-Control Groups (SOCCHG) & Stop Religious Coercion Australia (SRCA).

For the Victorian Inquiry into Cultic Practices.