CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/20/2026
Patrick Ryan
"A recent study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology provides evidence that the types of false memories people form depend on how believable an event is and how often they are told it occurred. The findings suggest that highly plausible events are much more likely to generate false beliefs, but only when people are led to believe the event happened just once. These insights help clarify how suggestion can distort human memory in everyday situations and legal settings.
To understand the new study, it helps to distinguish between false beliefs and false memories. A false belief occurs when a person is confident that a specific event happened to them, even if they cannot visualize it. A false memory goes a step further and involves vivid, sensory details of an event that never actually took place, making it feel like a genuine recollection.
While memory is generally reliable, it is not perfect. It is reconstructive, meaning it tends to be malleable and prone to errors. When people are exposed to suggestive questions or misleading information, they can sometimes adopt false beliefs or false memories.
The new study was authored by Mara Georgiana Moldoveanu of Maastricht University, Babeș-Bolyai University and KU Leuven; Ahmad Shahvaroughi of KU Leuven; Ivan Mangiulli of KU Leuven and the University of Bari Aldo Moro; Javad Hatami of the University of Tehran; and Henry Otgaar of Maastricht University and KU Leuven.
The researchers sought to address a specific gap in memory research regarding event frequency. Past work suggested that telling someone an event happened repeatedly did not significantly change their likelihood of forming a false memory compared to telling them it happened only once. But no previous study had looked at how this suggested frequency interacts with the plausibility of the event itself."
The Press: Gloriavale religious sect’s substantial dairy farm run entirely by 14-year-olds, court hears
"The Labour Inspectorate did not investigate after hearing serious employment allegations in Gloriavale, including a group of 14-year-olds running a large dairy farm and girls working in New Zealand’s largest kitchen, a court has heard.
A group of men and women who previously won Employment Court cases against the Gloriavale leaders are seeking a judicial review of a decision made by the inspectorate in 2017 and again in 2021 that people working in the community were volunteers, not employees.
Lawyer for the group Brian Henry told Chief Judge Christina Inglis during a hearing on Monday that the Labour Inspectorate had advice from Crown Law which suggested further avenues of investigation."
"On this edition of Conversations Daniella Mestyanek Young talks about “The Culting of America – What Makes a Cult, and Why We Love Them.” Daniella Mestyanek Young is a cult survivor, a U.S. Army Veteran, and a Harvard-trained organizational psychologist. Her first book, “Uncultured” was a critically acclaimed memoir of her cult experience."
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