Am J Psychiatry 1979; 136:165-170
Copyright © 1979 by American Psychiatric Association
The "Moonies": a psychological study of conversion and membership in a contemporary religious sect
M Galanter, R Rabkin, J Rabkin and A Deutsch
The authors undertook this study to enhance psychiatric understanding of
contemporary charismatic religious sects. After a pilot study, a
representative sample of members of the Unification Church (N = 237)
completed a 216-item structured questionnaire. Respondents were below the
mean for an age- and sex-matched group on a psychological general
well-being scale, and they reported significantly greater neurotic distress
before conversion. The authors discuss correlates of an improved emotional
state following conversion and employ attribution theory, drawn from social
psychology, to put the conversion process into a psychiatric perspective.
