You read about a group of people who are described as a "cult," and you start to wonder how people come to join such an organization. you decide that people must be very lonely and vulnerable to persuasion in order to join a cult. your guess about why a person would join a cult is an example of a(n)

The answer to this question is an example of a hypothesis.
Hypothesis refers to an intial explanation for a specific occurrence that is made based on limited evidence.
Hypothesis still could not be considered as a reliable resource and people need to conduct several types of research in order to find the true explanation of that occurrence