Re: Research Strategies for assessing Groups and Risk Factors
Date: November 08, 2012 04:33AM
Corboy
The next step would be to do a couple of surveys--a good project for a graduate student who has had prior course work in research methodology and questionnaire design.
(Even minor changes in wording a question can give quite different responses)
The survey should be designed to obtain information for these areas:
Level of stress in a persons family background. If respondants report troubled family backgrounds and their response is statistically greater than 50% (the rate to be expected based on random chance), that suggests a high proportion of people at that center who come from backgrounds that would train them to ignore when boundaries are compromised.
Other areas of scrutiny for designing a questionnaire:
Level of stress immediately preceding interest in Vajrayana and other forms of Buddhism
Level of stress immediately preceding entry into residential practice at the dharma center.
(One could structure a questionnaire to ask whether a respondant, prior to entry into residential practice had to change relationships, jobs, give up a place of residence or even give up a beloved dog or cat. The more a respondant has give up, the greater the risk of cognitive dissonance if something goes wrong at the practice center for which the respondant sacrificed so much to join.)
Additional questions could be asked about stressors--drinking or drugs use in family of origin age the person was when parents died or divorced, whether person has any children, illnesses or death among children.
Outside social support and quality that social support of before entry into residential practice--friends, health care providers, family.
Social support from outside of the dharma center after one year residence, three year residence, ten year residence. It would be important to know if people continue to maintain relationships with non practitioner friends and family and health care providers, or tend to let go of outside sources of validation the longer they remain at the center.
And...one could also ask persons at different levels of residence (one year, two years, three years, five years) at the center how much social support they have outside of that dharma center--list the number of supportive friends, family members and health care providers who are NOT in any way affiliated with the center or with Buddhism (or whateever the belief system) and whom the respondant can turn to if things go bad at the dharma center.
An additional study could be done to see if student perceptions of an objectively measurable behavior by an authority figure match well with observations of outside observers.
A good area to examine is perceptions if a teacher arrives late for scheduled events--would be whether the highest ranking teacher arrives on schedule for lectures and other teachings. All one has to do is look at the schedule and then note the the teacher's arrival (on time, 10 minutes late, 15 minutes late, 34 minutes late)
Then, at these same lectures, hand out a questionnaire with an item asking, "Today did the Teacher or Guru arrive on time for the talk or event?"
If the observer notes (using their wristwatches) that the teacher arrived late, but a high proportion of the questionnaire respondants reply that the teacher arrived on time, (or say the person arrived late but this is irrelevant in relation to the merit of receiving blessing, this would suggest that respondants are perceiving teacher behavior differently from an outside observer
---a subtle risk factor that could contribute to ignoring later and more severe boundary violations by that teacher or other authority figures.
Suggestion from Yasmin
Hi Corboy; such a study would be interesting.
Of course if your hypothesis is that people who join abusive religious groups are more likely to be stressed , or to have troubled backgrounds, then you would have to also look at two variables
Are people under stress more likely to join social groups of any kind ?
Are people under stress more likely to join religious groups of any kind?
Perhaps looking at stress levels/family backgrounds in people who join the Sierra Club, the local gym, etc would help with the first
And looking at stress levels/family backgrounds for people joining mainstream religions or NRMs that are seen as positive would help with the second to give some useful comparisons.
Of course even a study in a scientific journal will often still be effected by the bias of the observer, particularly in how they design the study and categorize the results.
For example, while looking around to see what had been studied in this area, I came across this gem
Clinical and Personality Assessments of Participants in New Religions, Richardson J.T. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion,Vol 5, Issue 3, 1995
From the abstract;
The present review covers considerable research...The conclusion in the earlier review that most experiences in the group were generally positive are strengthened by including this later reseach.
The three groups being studied were the Hare Krishna movement, Rajneesh, and The Jesus Movement.
I havent read his study design or seen more than the abstract, though I would guess that one possible major flaw would be that asking people in a group where criticism of the group might be considered a religious failing, whether or not they are happy in the group, is likely to get a positive response, regardless of the persons actual feelings.
It has been pretty well documented that many children raised in particular in the Hare Knrishna group certainly found the experience so much less than positive that I believe ( anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong here) that there was an out of court settlement to the tune of millions for compensation?
Yet from the point of view of this scientific study, the experience was "mainly positive".
My own hypothesis is that caught at the right time, any one can be vulnerable to a con or to a religion that becomes abusive . But that at least a percentage of the people who have been conned, particularly if they studied how such things occur, are more likely than others without such experience to be able to identify the warning signs when they see boundary violations happening again.
I personally don't believe that a personality flaw is responsible for people being vulnerable to being conned. Perhaps just innocence and lack of experience.