Self-assessment
Group questionnaire
Twenty-four questions about how a group behaves — not about what it believes. It takes about eight minutes, and it produces a profile across the six domains of control rather than a verdict.
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Before you begin
Answer for how things actually are, not how they are described. Many groups have excellent stated values. The questions ask about observed behaviour over the last year or so — what happens, not what is supposed to happen.
Answer for one group. If you are thinking about more than one, run it twice. It also works for a single relationship, a workplace, or a training organisation.
“I’m not sure” is information. If you cannot tell whether questioning is discouraged, that uncertainty is itself worth noticing: in healthy groups, people generally know.
This is not a diagnosis. It cannot tell you whether a group “is a cult,” and it does not try. It measures how much pressure is present in six specific areas, so that you have something more precise than unease to think with.
Some of these questions are difficult to sit with. There is no requirement to finish, and no cost to stopping. If you find yourself distressed, the support page lists free, confidential helplines in more than 130 countries.
Reference
How to read a score
Each answer scores 0 to 4 (Never = 0, Very often = 4). Each of the six domains has four questions, so a domain scores 0–16 and the whole questionnaire scores 0–96.
Total score
- 0–19 — Little pressure of this kind. The patterns this questionnaire measures are largely absent. Ordinary friction in a group is not the same thing as coercion.
- 20–39 — Some pressure, in places. Common in ordinary institutions with strong hierarchies. Worth watching the direction of travel: which domains, and whether they are intensifying.
- 40–59 — A recognisable pattern. The domains are starting to reinforce one another. Groups in this range are frequently experienced as increasingly difficult to question, and increasingly costly to leave.
- 60–79 — A strong and consistent pattern. What you have described closely matches the structure of a high-control environment. Independent outside perspective — from someone with no stake in the group — is worth seeking.
- 80–96 — A pervasive pattern. Nearly every domain is heavily loaded. Descriptions in this range are consistent with severe coercive control, and people in this situation are usually best supported by someone experienced with these dynamics rather than by general counselling.
Domain scores
The domain profile matters more than the total. Two groups can score 48 in entirely different ways, and the shape tells you where the pressure actually is.
- 0–4: largely absent.
- 5–8: present, intermittent.
- 9–12: a consistent feature of how the group operates.
- 13–16: a defining feature.
Two patterns worth particular attention
High reverse responsibility with high suppression of dissent. Together these close the correction loop: harm is redirected onto the person harmed, and raising it costs them. A group in this state cannot self-correct, whatever its stated values, because there is no longer any route by which accurate information about harm can reach the people with the power to act on it.
High identity & dependency with a low total. A group can be relatively benign in structure while a particular person’s life has narrowed drastically around it. That is worth taking seriously on its own terms — it is a fact about your situation, whatever the group is like.
Some honest limits
This questionnaire has not been formally validated. It is built on the domains that recur across the established instruments and frameworks — Lifton’s criteria, Hassan’s BITE model, and the Group Psychological Abuse Scale — but it is a structured way of organising your own observations, not a psychometric test. It cannot see your situation, and where it disagrees with your considered judgement, your judgement should win.
It also depends entirely on what you can currently perceive. People often retake it months later and score it very differently with the same group in mind — which is itself worth knowing about how these environments work.