I think "humiliation ritual" is a hugely important concept to keep in mind these days: It has a lot of explanatory power for the stuff we're seeing, such as brown-nosing by Trump cabinet members which is almost beyond parody.

A cult will demand members do things to "fit in", especially things that have a cost ("prove your sincerity") and also things which alienate them from the non-group. The latter is a ratcheting trap, leading to: "We are your only home now, nobody else will have you."

I've been telling my curious/adrift relatives that it's a machine takes a document and guesses what "usually" comes next based on other documents. You're not "chatting with it" as much as helping it construct a chat document.

The closer they can map their real problems to make-document-bigger, the better their results will be.

Alas, that alignment is nearly 100% when it comes to academic cheating.