Fig 5. Belief Invasion.

(a) The survival of cults and fringe groups depends on the coherence and strength of beliefs. We create a network with two communities with parameters T = 2.0, I = 0.09, and J = 2.0—putting the system in a regime where it will seek consensus. We vary the fraction of links that connect the cult community to the mainstream community, denoted μ. e_o is the number of social links between communities and ∑k_i is the total number of links in the cult (both shared and internal). The mainstream community attempts to convert the smaller cult. (b) At low μ the lack of exposure allows the cult to resist mainstream conversion. At higher μ there is sufficient exposure to the mainstream community to overcome the rigidity of the cult’s belief system. However, the process of conversion becomes more difficult as the cult’s beliefs become more coherent than mainstream beliefs. Cults are easily converted with highly coherent mainstream beliefs even at low exposure levels (black circles), while cults maintain their beliefs even at high exposure given low coherence of mainstream beliefs (red squares). Bars show standard deviation.