Bounded Choice
Janja Lalich's framework explaining how members make 'real' choices that are nonetheless tightly bounded by the group's worldview and exit costs.
How it looks in practice
A bounded-choice example: a JW member 'chooses' not to accept a blood transfusion. Within the JW worldview the choice is genuine. But the choice is bounded by 60 years of in-group teaching that blood transfusions risk eternal life, plus the social cost of disfellowshipping if they accept. The choice is real; the constraints are also real.
BITE-model connection
Bounded choice cuts across all four BITE axes — information control restricts the alternatives one can even consider, thought control supplies the categories that make some options unthinkable, and emotional control attaches fear to deviation. Lalich's framework is one of the three foundational theories alongside BITE and Lifton's criteria.
Groups in the dataset that reference Bounded Choice
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Blog posts that discuss this term
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