How is the human psyche structured? What principles do psychocults operate on? How does the thinking of those who get drawn into cults differ from the thinking of those who create them?
You’ll find authentic stories and astonishing psychological experiments—ones that can truly shake you.
Psychologist Анастасия Шавырина’s book brings together two of the author’s popular works: “Psychological Experiments. Real Stories” and “Dangerous Psychocults and Sects. The Whole Truth About Manipulating the Mind.”
This gripping immersion into the world of unusual scientific experiments is at the same time a dark reality of psychocults and sects.
Many of the experiments described are shocking, but precisely because of that, they help you ask the key questions: who we are, how we make decisions, and what actually controls our behavior?
A separate part of the book is devoted to the mechanisms of sects: you will see how they work from the inside, what psychological practices they use, and why these methods often leave severe trauma.
You’ll understand the peculiarities of the thinking of victims, leaders, and recruiters, and you’ll also find exercises and techniques that will help you recognize pressure and protect yourself from other people’s manipulations.
What is the marshmallow (zephyr) experiment? Why can animals die en masse even in “ideal” conditions? Why did scientists try to raise a child together with a monkey? Why do people keep falling for the tricks of fraudsters? How do psychocults work? What caused the tragedy in Jonestown? Answers to these and many other questions are on the pages of this book.