Am I in a Cult Quiz
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- Refusal is accepted without punishment or loss of standing.
- I have been forced to participate or have been physically harmed by the practice.
- There is noticeable social pressure, but I can decline.
- Refusal brings serious shame, threats, penalties, or pressure to continue through pain or illness.
- I am sometimes asked to share more than I would prefer, but refusal is accepted.
- I am expected to show messages, report contacts, or share my location.
- My communications are private, and I choose what to share.
- My devices or accounts are searched, controlled, confiscated, or used without meaningful consent.
- I have been hit, restrained, injured, or subjected to forced physical punishment.
- No physical punishment or intimidation has occurred.
- I have witnessed rough or intimidating conduct that made me question what might happen.
- Someone has threatened force, blocked my path, or used intimidating physical proximity.
Am I in a Cult Quiz - Description and methodology of the test
People who feel uncertain, pressured, or unsafe in a demanding group can use this cult quiz to sort concrete experiences into patterns. It keeps attention on specific situations rather than broad labels. The Am I in a Cult Quiz is suited to reflection when concerns involve control, dependency, isolation, punishment, or difficulty leaving.
What This Assessment Explores
Questions cover physical practices, private communication, outside relationships, independent information, basic needs, money, work, decisions, disagreement, and leaving. Four responses distinguish choice from pressure, restriction, retaliation, coercion, or harm. As a cult involvement quiz, it focuses on conduct rather than proving a label.
The displayed profile organizes these experiences into three dimensions:
- Exploitation and Exit Pressure (0-15) measures financial, labor, dependency, and leaving pressure: No indicators endorsed 0; Worth noticing 1-2; Support and action warranted 3-15.
- Information and Social Control (0-15) measures communication, outside contact, independent checking, and dissent: No indicators endorsed 0-0; Worth noticing 1-2; Support/action warranted 3-15.
- Personal Autonomy and Physical Safety (0-15) measures decisions, movement, basic needs, and bodily safety: No listed indicator endorsed 0; Worth noticing 1-2; Support and action warranted 3-15.
The three scores show which listed experiences contributed most to the result.
Methodology and Scientific Basis
Each item is self-report and offers four situation-specific responses, ranging from accepted choice or privacy to pressure, restriction, coercion, or harm. The scenarios cover demanding practices, communications, relationships, care, assets, work, source-checking, departure, decisions, disagreement, donations, and personal favors. Responses are grouped into domain totals, but the questionnaire does not state each option’s point weight, so totals should not be reverse-engineered into a severity formula.
The questionnaire’s cult control questions are conceptually consistent with PAEGS (Saldaña et al., 2017) and the Group Psychological Abuse Scale (Chambers et al., 1994), but it is not an adaptation or standardized administration of either measure. Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015) describe a related taxonomy of group psychological abuse, not a measurement instrument.
The bands are unvalidated reflective summaries rather than clinical, legal, safety, or severity cutoffs. Self-report can be shaped by fear, loyalty, current conflict, memory, limited information, or self-awareness. A concerning experience can matter independently of the total, especially when retaliation, confinement, deprivation, or physical harm is involved; immediate danger calls for emergency help.
- Saldaña, O., Rodríguez-Carballeira, A., Almendros, C., & Escartín, J. (2017). Development and validation of the Psychological Abuse Experienced in Groups Scale. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 9(2), 57-64. 10.1016/j.ejpal.2017.01.002
- Chambers, W. V., Langone, M. D., Dole, A. A., & Grice, J. W. (1994). The Group Psychological Abuse Scale: A Measure of the Varieties of Cultic Abuse. Cultic Studies Journal, 11(1), 88-117.
- Rodríguez-Carballeira, A., Saldaña, O., Almendros, C., Martín-Peña, J., Escartín, J., & Porrúa-García, C. (2015). Group psychological abuse: Taxonomy and severity of its components. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 7(1), 31-39. 10.1016/j.ejpal.2014.11.001
Updated: