This is the last article in my series on the exploration of the disorienting effects of cognitive dissonance, or what happens when people confront evidence that undermines their most deeply held beliefs. From postwar reckonings to conspiracy tribalism, this series has explored how identity, trust, and denial collide when the world no longer makes sense.

This month, I am focusing on the world of high-control systems. These include not only the cults we recognize with their charismatic leaders, secretive rituals, and emotional captivity, but also abusive relationships and the more socially accepted version that is hiding in plain sight: multilevel marketing (MLM) companies. What unites these groups isn’t a shared ideology, but a shared reliance on control. And what keeps people tethered to them isn’t always belief, but psychology.

The Psychology of Control

Cults & Abusive Relationships

When we hear the word “cult,” we tend to picture fringe religions preaching the end-of-days. Or, when we hear about an abusive relationship, we assume it could never happen to us and wonder how anyone could join, or remain with, such a cruel group or person. But most high-control situations don’t begin with overt manipulation; they start with promises of belonging, success, and meaning. New recruits and partners are “love bombed” with affirmation, affection, and the illusion of empowerment. Because the changes are slow and subtle, it can take years before survivors fully recognize the reality of their situation (Feliciano, 2023).

What starts as motivation becomes manipulation, and what starts as belief becomes identity.

Survivors often describe being gradually cut off from outside influences, pressured to conform to a single worldview, and subjected to an authority figure who demands loyalty above all else. Abusers maintain dominance by discouraging doubt, vilifying outsiders, and isolating members from alternate realities. Identity becomes conditional, and dissent is seen as betrayal (Singer, 1995).

Social psychologist Dr. Janja Lalich refers to this as the “bounded choice” phenomenon. Once someone internalizes the controller’s logic, every decision (even leaving) appears to be a personal failure rather than a systemic flaw. These situations exploit this dynamic by creating environments where doubt is framed as disloyalty and failure is always the fault of the individual. Belonging and identity are weaponized into tools of control (Lalich, 2004).

The cognitive dissonance of these situations is devastating. Survivors are trapped in a psychological bind where they believe they are loved, yet they are being hurt. The contradiction between care and control, and the shame that is often associated, generates an excruciating inner conflict. And instead of walking away, many rationalize the abuse, believing it must be their fault or that things will improve (Gaba, 2021).

Importantly, abuse does not have to take the form of physical violence. It can be emotional, through belittling, isolation, and “gaslighting,” or financial, where the survivor is blocked from accessing money and resources. Increasingly, researchers and advocates use the term “coercive control” to describe this broader pattern of behaviours designed to strip away autonomy, foster dependency, and instill fear. Coercive control highlights how power can be exercised subtly yet pervasively, making the victim feel trapped even when no physical harm is present (Stark, 2007).

Abusers often alternate cruelty with affection —what psychologists call “intermittent reinforcement” —using techniques such as the aforementioned love bombing and gaslighting. These cycles create powerful trauma bonds. Over time, the person’s internal world becomes distorted, with the controller at its center. Doubt is discouraged, information is manipulated, and independence is eroded (Gaba, 2021).

Multilevel Marketing Companies

MLMs use many of the same psychological tactics of control as cults and abusive partners, yet they are marketed as legitimate opportunities for financial freedom and empowerment, particularly for women seeking flexible income. But the reality is that they are just as predatory. The products are secondary, and the real commodity is belief in the brand, the business model, and ultimately yourself (Keep & Vander Nat 2014).

To participate, recruits must first buy the products they are expected to sell, meaning that as soon as they start out, they are in debt. Financial success is not achieved through product sales but through recruitment and building a “downline” of others whose sales and fees funnel upward. When profits fail to appear (and statistically, this is almost always the case), the MLM dogma kicks in. Recruits are told, and come to believe, that they simply didn’t try hard enough or want it badly enough. Economic failure is reframed as moral failure. It triggers the same dissonance loop we explored throughout this series, that rather than confront the possibility that the system is flawed, participants double down, buying more inventory they cannot sell and sinking deeper into financial hardship. Along the way, many lose friendships and family ties as they push recruitment or sales in their bid for success (Keep & Vander Nat 2014).

Research shows that 99% of MLM participants lose money once expenses are factored in. In other words, nearly everyone involved (except the parent company raking in the profits) ends up worse financially, despite the promise of success and independence. MLMs depend on recruitment, not sales, and retention relies on belief, not data. That belief is fueled by peer pressure, company testimonials, and aspirational imagery that reduces success to a matter of mindset (Taylor, 2011).

For a deeper look into the world of MLMs, the popular podcast The Dream has exposed just how much MLMs rely on manipulation, pulling back the curtain on the psychology that keeps people in and new people joining.

From Belief to Belonging

Whether it's a spiritual leader, your “upline” mentor, or a supposed loved one, high-control groups offer community, which is something we all crave. But it's a community with strings attached. As Robert Jay Lifton (1961) warned in his study on thought reform, high-control systems maintain dominance by isolating members from alternate realities. Dissent is discouraged, outsiders are vilified, and conformity becomes a prerequisite for love, success, and safety.

This is where identity and belief blur into something more dangerous, and self-worth becomes conditional. It’s not just what you believe, but who you are allowed to be. Recent examples such as the “7M TikTok cult” highlight how high-control systems adapt to the times, using viral fame and fortune as both a recruitment tool and a mechanism of control.

Rebuilding the Self

For mental health professionals, this presents a critical challenge. Escaping abuse in any sense is not only about physical safety, but also about cognitive recovery. Survivors need support to recognize the dissonance and rebuild their sense of self. Therapeutic approaches must be trauma-informed, empowering, and above all, compassionate. People caught in these systems are not gullible or broken, they are human, and they have psychological needs for purpose, safety, and significance. And when those needs are met by exploitative systems, escape can feel not only terrifying, but impossible (Hassan, 2023).

The environments and experiences that shape people’s beliefs, behaviours, and resilience matter. High-control systems thrive in the very spaces where mental health services are weakest, where trust is low, connection is scarce, and support is fragmented (Gaba, 2021).

Leaving a high-control situation isn’t as simple as “waking up.” It’s a slow, painful process of rebuilding trust in oneself and others. The new wave of “exit counseling” emphasizes trauma-informed care, not confrontation. Therapists, peer networks, and support groups help former members navigate shame, loss, and the difficult work of forming a new identity (Barnty, 2024).

The goal isn’t to “fix” beliefs. It’s to reintroduce the ability to question, to doubt, and to choose. In other words, it is about building cognitive flexibility (Barnty, 2024).

Cognitive dissonance has been the thread running through this series, and it is at the heart of every high-control system. In cults, it silences doubt by reframing loyalty as virtue. In abusive relationships, it twists love into justification for harm. And in MLMs, it recasts financial failure as personal weakness. Though the settings differ, the mechanism is the same: turning vulnerability into loyalty to maintain control. As we’ve seen in the previous articles in this series, this same dynamic plays out in societies grappling with collective guilt after war, in the MAGA movement’s rejection of inconvenient truths, and in the allure of conspiracy theories that offer certainty in chaos. Yet dissonance can be overcome. With empathy, safety, and community, people can and do emerge from even the most rigid systems with clarity, strength, and renewed agency.

Bibliography

Barnty, B. (2024). Exit strategies: Deprogramming and recovery from cult influence. ResearchGate.

Feliciano, S. E. (2023). An Application of the Coercive Control Framework to Cults. City University of New York.

Gaba, S. (2021, May 24). Narcissists, relationships, and cognitive dissonance. Psychology Today.

Hassan, S. A. (2023). Beyond cult "deprogramming". Psychology Today.

Keep, W. W., & Vander Nat, P. J. (2014). Multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes in the United States: An historical analysis. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 6(2), 188–210.

Lalich, J. (2004). Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. University of California Press.

Lifton, R. J. (1961). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism: A study of brainwashing in China. Norton.

Singer, M. T. (1995). Cults in Our Midst. Jossey-Bass.

Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford University Press.

Taylor, J. M. (2011). The case (for and) against multi-level marketing. Consumer Awareness Institute.