What Is a Cult of Personality?

Cults of personality are built around devotion to a charismatic leader, especially a political leader. Learn how to recognize a cult of personality and break free.

January 17, 2025 · 9 min · 1843 words · Jonathan Jensen

Table of Contents

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Table of Contents

What Is a Cult of Personality?

History

The Charismatic Leader

Breaking Free

Close

A cult of personality, sometimes referred to as a personality cult, is defined as “exaggerated devotion to a charismatic political, religious, or other leader.”

Leaders of cults of personality often use imagery and themanipulation of mass mediato form an exalted, even superhuman, version of their persona in the minds of their followers.Their followers accept the leader’s persona and authority, which leads to their devotion to the leader and their mission to bring about an imagined future.

History of Cults of Personality

The term “cult of personality” was popularized after Nikita Khrushchev used it in a 1956 speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in which he denounced the ongoing cult of personality surrounding Joseph Stalin, who had died three years prior.

However, the term was first used in modern European languages much earlier, in the first half of the 1800s. Khrushchev wasn’t even the first person to use the term in the Soviet Union. Stalin’s successor Georgi Malenkov first used it in 1953 to describe Stalin and his followers, just as Khrushchev did three years later.

Yet, while the term may only be around 200 years old, there are examples of cults of personality that date all the way back to ancient times. One includes Augustus, the first Roman emperor, and his dynasty, which started deifying dead and eventually living emperors.

Cults of personality have become easier to create and sustain in modern times as mass media has become increasingly sophisticated and accessible, enabling the leaders of cults of personality to more easily spread and control their messages.

Some scholars trace the first modern cult of personality to 1851 when Napoleon III seized power in France and eventually declared himself Emperor.However, many trace it to 1924 when Stalin decided to embalm Vladimir Lenin’s corpse and display it publicly, a move that started a posthumous personality cult dedicated to the Soviet leader.

Sociologist Max Weber introduced the concept of charismatic authority, which most personality cult researchers agree is essential to understanding this kind of leadership. According to Weber, charisma is a “certain quality of an individual personality [under] which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least especially exceptional powers or qualities.”

Meanwhile, charismatic authority depends on individual followers’ devotion to and trust in an individual leader. In this context, followers’ perception of the leader is crucial to maintaining their legitimacy, so the media is used to create and promote a larger-than-life image of the leader.

Another feature of charismatic authority is that it’s frequently critical of existing institutions and seeks to bring about some form of change, which could constitute anything from a previous idealized time to revolutionary reform.

This mission to disrupt the established order is key to the success of a charismatic leader as the more followers buy into the belief that there’s a crisis in society that current institutions can’t fix, the more likely they are to place their hopes in a charismatic leader. The same basic principles apply to the figure around which a cult of personality forms.

The Major Leadership Theories

The real or imagined qualities of the charismatic leader that are established through mass media may start to establish a cult of personality, but it’s ultimately the response of potential followers that makes a personality cult possible.

In-Groups and the Need to Belong

To resonate, a charismatic leader must speak in the language of their followers to ensure the followers understand and accept the leader’s mission. If the leader is successful in this endeavor, it can strengthen their followers' devotion and belief in them,but it will also enhance the feeling that the personality cult members are part of an in-group.

This in-group then develops its own visual references, beliefs, and rituals that strengthen devotion to the leader and the personality cult as a whole. Performing such rituals or state beliefs aligned with the personality cult can become a litmus test for belonging.

How Groupthink Impacts Our Behavior

Identity Fusion and the Devoted Actor

Ultimately, when devotion to the leader and their mission evolves into devotion to the personality cult as a whole, followers may experience identity fusion, in which one’s social identity and individualself-conceptare fused. This can lead followers to feel a family-like bond with other group members, encouraging them to engage inextreme behavior, even fighting and dying, on behalf of the group.

According to the theoretical framework of the “devoted actor,” these actions have nothing to do with anticipated risks or rewards but are the result of followers’ unconditional commitment to the group’s morals, values, and ideology.

In cults of personality, this can mean loyalty to the group, and obedience to the leader becomes more important than more established values. As a result, identity fusion with a personality cult can result in ties to the group that are even stronger than those to their own family.

So while those on the outside may see how the leader is manipulating and exploiting their followers and question why group members continue to fall prey to this, their followers will become increasingly dedicated to the cult of personality.

Breaking Free of Cults of Personality

Because cults of personality are so successful at fulfillingsocial needs, it can be challenging to break free on one’s own. Moreover, if one lives in a country where a personality cult was created to strengthen the political hold of an authoritarian leader, they may have no ability to do so.

For people who have fallen prey to cults of personality operating in democracies, it will likely take concerned friends and family to start the process of opening a loved one’s eyes to their participation.

This process requires patience and tolerance, but ultimately, it can help the individual recognize and break free of the personality cult’s influence on their lives. One way or another, though, it has to be the individual’s choice to break free, and friends and family must accept that the process won’t work unless their loved one comes to their own realization that they no longer wish to be part of the cult of personality.

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11 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology.Cult of personality.Crabtree C, Kern HL, Siegel DA.Cults of personality, preference falsification, and the dictator’s dilemma.J Theor Polit. 2020;32(3):409-434. doi:10.1177/0951629820927790Lu X, Soboleva E.Personality cults in modern politics: cases from Russia and China. Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Global Politics.Pisch A.The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 1929–1953: Archetypes, Inventions and Fabrications. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press; 2016.Żyromski M.The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian propaganda.Przegląd Politologiczny. 2019;(2):95-108. doi:10.14746/pp.2019.24.2.7Lloyd V.Charisma and seduction. Social Science Research Council.Cocker HA, Cronin J.Charismatic authority and the YouTuber.Mark Theory. 2017;17(4):455-472. doi:10.1177/1470593117692022Seaton EK, Quintana S, Verkuyten M, Gee GC.Peers, policies, and place: the relation between context and ethnic/racial identity.Child Dev. 2017;88(3):683-692. doi:10.1111/cdev.12787Atran S.The devoted actor: unconditional commitment and intractable conflict across cultures.Curr Anthropol. 2016;57(S13):S192-S203. doi:10.1086/685495Hagan J.“So many great, educated, functional people were brainwashed”: can Trump’s cult of followers be deprogrammed?Vanity Fair.Maag C.The ‘Cult of Trump’ can be healed. It will take years of work and empathy, not shouting.NorthJersey.com.

11 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology.Cult of personality.Crabtree C, Kern HL, Siegel DA.Cults of personality, preference falsification, and the dictator’s dilemma.J Theor Polit. 2020;32(3):409-434. doi:10.1177/0951629820927790Lu X, Soboleva E.Personality cults in modern politics: cases from Russia and China. Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Global Politics.Pisch A.The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 1929–1953: Archetypes, Inventions and Fabrications. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press; 2016.Żyromski M.The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian propaganda.Przegląd Politologiczny. 2019;(2):95-108. doi:10.14746/pp.2019.24.2.7Lloyd V.Charisma and seduction. Social Science Research Council.Cocker HA, Cronin J.Charismatic authority and the YouTuber.Mark Theory. 2017;17(4):455-472. doi:10.1177/1470593117692022Seaton EK, Quintana S, Verkuyten M, Gee GC.Peers, policies, and place: the relation between context and ethnic/racial identity.Child Dev. 2017;88(3):683-692. doi:10.1111/cdev.12787Atran S.The devoted actor: unconditional commitment and intractable conflict across cultures.Curr Anthropol. 2016;57(S13):S192-S203. doi:10.1086/685495Hagan J.“So many great, educated, functional people were brainwashed”: can Trump’s cult of followers be deprogrammed?Vanity Fair.Maag C.The ‘Cult of Trump’ can be healed. It will take years of work and empathy, not shouting.NorthJersey.com.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology.Cult of personality.Crabtree C, Kern HL, Siegel DA.Cults of personality, preference falsification, and the dictator’s dilemma.J Theor Polit. 2020;32(3):409-434. doi:10.1177/0951629820927790Lu X, Soboleva E.Personality cults in modern politics: cases from Russia and China. Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Global Politics.Pisch A.The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 1929–1953: Archetypes, Inventions and Fabrications. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press; 2016.Żyromski M.The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian propaganda.Przegląd Politologiczny. 2019;(2):95-108. doi:10.14746/pp.2019.24.2.7Lloyd V.Charisma and seduction. Social Science Research Council.Cocker HA, Cronin J.Charismatic authority and the YouTuber.Mark Theory. 2017;17(4):455-472. doi:10.1177/1470593117692022Seaton EK, Quintana S, Verkuyten M, Gee GC.Peers, policies, and place: the relation between context and ethnic/racial identity.Child Dev. 2017;88(3):683-692. doi:10.1111/cdev.12787Atran S.The devoted actor: unconditional commitment and intractable conflict across cultures.Curr Anthropol. 2016;57(S13):S192-S203. doi:10.1086/685495Hagan J.“So many great, educated, functional people were brainwashed”: can Trump’s cult of followers be deprogrammed?Vanity Fair.Maag C.The ‘Cult of Trump’ can be healed. It will take years of work and empathy, not shouting.NorthJersey.com.

American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology.Cult of personality.

Crabtree C, Kern HL, Siegel DA.Cults of personality, preference falsification, and the dictator’s dilemma.J Theor Polit. 2020;32(3):409-434. doi:10.1177/0951629820927790

Lu X, Soboleva E.Personality cults in modern politics: cases from Russia and China. Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Global Politics.

Pisch A.The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 1929–1953: Archetypes, Inventions and Fabrications. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press; 2016.

Żyromski M.The cult of personality as an important feature of totalitarian propaganda.Przegląd Politologiczny. 2019;(2):95-108. doi:10.14746/pp.2019.24.2.7

Lloyd V.Charisma and seduction. Social Science Research Council.

Cocker HA, Cronin J.Charismatic authority and the YouTuber.Mark Theory. 2017;17(4):455-472. doi:10.1177/1470593117692022

Seaton EK, Quintana S, Verkuyten M, Gee GC.Peers, policies, and place: the relation between context and ethnic/racial identity.Child Dev. 2017;88(3):683-692. doi:10.1111/cdev.12787

Atran S.The devoted actor: unconditional commitment and intractable conflict across cultures.Curr Anthropol. 2016;57(S13):S192-S203. doi:10.1086/685495

Hagan J.“So many great, educated, functional people were brainwashed”: can Trump’s cult of followers be deprogrammed?Vanity Fair.

Maag C.The ‘Cult of Trump’ can be healed. It will take years of work and empathy, not shouting.NorthJersey.com.

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