Best questions for ex-cult member survey about spiritual abuse experiences

Here are some of the best questions for an ex-cult member survey about spiritual abuse experiences, along with tips on crafting them. You can quickly build such a survey with Specific in seconds—our platform makes it easy to start these conversations.

10 best open-ended questions for ex-cult member survey about spiritual abuse experiences

Open-ended questions help us capture nuanced stories and context, especially for sensitive topics like spiritual abuse. They’re essential when you want to uncover how ex-cult members really feel, not just check boxes. Here’s a list of open-ended questions that prompt honest, detailed responses:

1. Can you describe a moment when you first recognized something felt spiritually abusive in your group?

2. What kinds of teachings, rules, or pressures did you experience that you would now consider spiritually abusive?

3. How did leaders or other members enforce compliance or punish questioning?

4. What impact did spiritual abuse have on your sense of self or worldview?

5. Were there specific phrases, doctrines, or practices used to justify control or manipulation?

6. How did you cope emotionally or psychologically during your time in the group?

7. What factors made it difficult to recognize or name what was happening as abuse?

8. Looking back, what support or intervention do you wish you’d had at the time?

9. How has your recovery journey unfolded since leaving the group?

10. Is there anything you’d want the public or professionals to understand about spiritual abuse?

Open-ended questions like these give ex-cult members control over their narrative and surface insights that numbers alone can’t reveal. Research indicates that approximately 80% of ex-cult members report religious abuse within their former groups—a staggering number that highlights just how important it is to invite detailed stories and not just quick answers. [1]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for ex-cult member survey about spiritual abuse experiences

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you need to quantify experiences, benchmark patterns, or simply prompt a discussion. Sometimes, it’s easier for someone to click an option first, then explain further. These types of questions can open the door for deeper, follow-up conversations.

Question: During your time in the group, which forms of spiritual abuse did you experience most frequently?

• Emotional manipulation

• Isolation from family/friends

• Financial exploitation

• Doctrinal control

• Other

Question: How did the group react when members questioned authority or teachings?

• Public reprimand/shaming

• Expulsion or threats of expulsion

• More intense indoctrination

• No reaction

Question: Since leaving the group, how has your emotional health changed?

• Significantly improved

• Somewhat improved

• No change

• Worsened

When to follow up with "why"? Always follow up with "why" when someone selects a response that could mean many different things or seems important for understanding impact. For example, if someone chose "Emotional manipulation," we’d ask, "Can you share an example of how this manipulation appeared in daily life?" It uncovers the hidden layers that a single ticked box can’t show.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Adding "Other" lets respondents share their unique perspective if none of the options fit. Following up on "Other" with an open-ended prompt ("Please describe") often uncovers unexpected forms of abuse or recovery that we hadn’t thought to include—sometimes these become key findings in the research.

NPS-type questions: Do they fit for these experiences?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is typically used to measure loyalty or recommendability, but it’s surprisingly useful in sensitive ex-cult contexts, too. For example, you might ask: "How likely are you to recommend seeking support after leaving a high-control group to someone in a similar situation?" It quickly reveals how strongly ex-members feel about healing communities and resources. You can instantly generate a tailored NPS survey for ex-cult members about spiritual abuse experiences to capture this kind of feedback.

The power of follow-up questions

If you want real context behind answers, automated follow-up questions are a game-changer. Instead of revisiting unclear responses via endless email, let AI ask smart follow-ups in real time—saving time and keeping the conversation flowing naturally. Learn more about this breakthrough at our AI follow-up questions feature page.

• Ex-Cult Member: "I felt isolated most of the time."

• AI follow-up: "Could you tell me more about what isolated you—was it rules, lack of contact with outsiders, or something else?"

How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 follow-ups are enough. With tools like Specific, you can fine-tune how persistent these follow-ups are, and let respondents skip ahead if they’ve shared enough detail. It’s all about balancing depth and comfort.

This makes it a conversational survey: Follow-ups turn your survey into an actual dialogue, rather than a static list. That’s the essence of a conversational survey—and the engagement rates and insights prove it.

AI analysis of open-ended feedback: Thanks to AI, even large volumes of open-ended responses become manageable. It’s simple to analyze the full picture—see how this works in our AI survey response analysis guide. Large amounts of unstructured text are quickly sorted into key themes, all without manual review.

Follow-up questions as an automated AI feature are new—try generating a survey with Specific to see this conversational feedback for yourself.

How to get great questions from ChatGPT (or any GPT) to survey ex-cult members about spiritual abuse experiences

You can also use AI tools like ChatGPT to brainstorm and refine your survey. First, try something simple:

"Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Ex-Cult Member survey about Spiritual Abuse Experiences."

But you’ll get even better results if you give more context: describe your goals, your audience, and the intended outcome. For example, you could prompt:

"I’m designing a survey for ex-cult members to share spiritual abuse experiences in detail, aiming to uncover common patterns and guide better support resources. Can you suggest 10 in-depth, respectful open-ended questions?"

Once you have a question list, use a prompt to organize them:

"Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them."

After reviewing those categories, you can go deeper on specific topics:

"Generate 10 questions for categories 'Emotional Impact' and 'Group Leadership Tactics'."

This iterative process gets you closer to the most relevant and insightful survey content.

What is a conversational survey (and why AI beats manual creation)?

A conversational survey feels more like chatting with a caring researcher than ticking boxes on a cold form. Respondents engage, clarify, and expand on their answers—meaning feedback is richer and more authentic. Building this manually is time-consuming and gets unwieldy as follow-up complexity grows. With an AI survey generator, you describe what you want, and the system helps shape the survey—including dynamic follow-ups and response analysis—instantly.

Why use AI for ex-cult member surveys? AI-powered surveys keep confidentiality, offer conversational engagement, and adapt live to responses—creating a safe space for delicate disclosures. You can see examples in our survey creation guide for ex-cult members about spiritual abuse. Try our AI survey example generators to see how fast and easy this can be.

We’re committed to best-in-class, conversational survey experiences at Specific. Both for survey creators and for ex-cult members, it’s the smoothest, most humane way to gather truth and help generate real change.

See this spiritual abuse experiences survey example now

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