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In Reply to: 2 points posted by someone on August 16, 2004 at 17:54:48:
I don't completely understand your first point. However, since I've had an opportunity to look at the scales used in this study, I'd definitely say change was measured according to a Systemite's idea of what "change" entails--losing your parents to divorce, changing schools, geographic moves, change in family structure & organization. The validity of the change construct for a Family youth is an interesting issue that has to do with instrument norming on a culturally-specific group.
The researcher states he would like to do further study where he gets at the difference between what the kid says s/he believes and what the Family officially teaches. That might get at the backsliding issue somewhat. It may be that Family youth in the sample of 172 don't believe backsliding is so horrible the way their parents do. Don't forget, official Family teaching allows for "moving on."
On point two you're also raising the issue of the contruct validity of the questions for Family youth. As I recall, the researcher didn't report scale alphas, which would give some indication of how accurately he measured what he thought he was measuring. Also, these scales haven't been normed against the population of Family kids as a whole, so there's no way to know how accurate the measure anything across the population. What percentage of the population of Family kids is 172? Not a lot. We also know nothing about sample selection procedures.
Moreover, there's no theory that I know anything about that would support an hypothesis that being raised in a high demand cult will correlate with a higher incidence of personality pathology. The researcher didn't go looking for anything I would have expected he could find in this sample. The causes of personality pathology are not well understood, although presence of brain disease is often correlated.
We can argue from ecological theory that being raised in a chaotic family environment where substance abuse & violence & brain disease are commonplace among adults will correlate with a higher incidence of anxiety disorders and depression (neurologically based problems) in the offspring. That's because genetics & environment have come together in a particularly toxic manner with regard to brain development in the offspring. It is entirely possible for an individual with a brain disease to experience personality development within a normal ranges, although statistically there is a higher frequency of personality disturbance in persons with brain disease.
Therefore, I think the researcher would do better to look for symptoms of brain disease, particularly anxiety and depression, in order to evaluate the relationship between the Family environment and adolescent & young adult mental health. Symptoms of anxiety and depression can be measured cross-culturally, so that it doesn't much matter what the young person in the Family sample thinks a written statement means or doesn't mean.
There is also a theory that suggests a relationship between irrational beliefs and depression. I would characterize a number of Family beliefs and values as irrational. There's certainly a fair share of magical thinking in the Family's belief system. Magical thinking is generally associated with a propensity for psychosis, although it can also be a culturally appropriate thing.
As indicated earlier, the researcher tried to control for the social desirability factor--he had some clue that his subjects would try to tell him what they thought he wanted to hear. His measure to control for that didn't show anything significant. I think a better measure would have been to get at the black-and-white thinking that characterizes a "split" self that cannot accommodate ambiguity. There are some intriguing findings in this research project on Family kids' personality development to suggest this would be a fruitful approach.
All I can say is that this particular study is the most rigorous one done to date on a sample of Family kids. It's hardly the final word on whether growing up in the Family is a good thing, and there are things in the findings that could be used against the Family if one were inclined to take the implications of certain findings in that direction. I'm guessing this researcher would be interested in testing a sample of young people who have left the Family. He makes some interesting speculations about personality dimensions among active members in the sample and those of members who have left the group.
