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A sociological rather than psychological notion of susceptibility to being drawn into cults

Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems, by Alexandra Stein loc 2029:

For over half a century, then, scholars of totalism from Arendt to Zimbardo have found that there is no personality profile of a potential recruit to a totalist or extremist group. In 2011, a UK government report confirmed yet again that “researchers concluded there was no ‘vulnerability profile’ to help identify those at risk of becoming radicalized without creating an ‘unmanageable number of false positives.’”54 As these studies show, it is unhelpful to continue looking for a profile of a “typical” terrorist or cult recruit – most of us could become vulnerable given the right conditions, the right group and the right time. A far more fruitful approach is to understand the profile, methods and operating (perhaps we should say “hunting”) grounds of the organizations to which people are recruited, and to be able to distinguish effectively between open and relatively benign organizations from dangerous, totalist organizations that are capable of exerting extreme levels of control over their members.

This fits well with Seymour’s account of disaster nationalism. If the issue is a matter of conditions rather than psychological type, a increase in the production of those conditions and their distribution across the population, leads to a great susceptibility across population to be drawn into (now digitally mediated and distributed) cults. From loc 2002:

Singer, who counseled thousands of former cult members, described a key vulnerability as being in a normal life “blip.”50 That is, some recent, yet developmentally normal, change in life situation such as a recent move to attend university, a divorce or other relationship breakup, perhaps a death in the family, or a change of job or housing. War, natural disasters or social upheavals – such as the breakup of the former Soviet Union, or the current collapsed states of Syria or Somalia – can contribute to weakening family and community ties leading to increased social fragmentation and isolation. Simply living in the contemporary developed world, with fewer neighborhood ties and more dispersed families, means most of us live in increasingly vulnerable social networks.

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