Jonestown, 1978

MrMagoo

Hi,

Just wondering peoples thoughts on the mass suicide in Jonestown in 1978 when Jim Jones convinced his followers to drink poison and even kill their own children first.

What core psychological things were going on there? Obviously power, obiedence, conformity etc. Was there something more though? Is there a difference between "brainwashing" and being totally obident to the leader of a group. It seems on the surface most of these people took their own lives willingly even though they had the option to leave the group days earlier.

The reason for my questions is that I was reading a few articles on conformity and Jonestown stands out as a classic example in history.

Any thoughts/comments welcome

p.pete

Social psychology gone wrong!
Quite an interesting article here:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov03/jonestown.html
(let me know if there's any problems viewing)

The article relates directly to lessons to be learnt from Jonestown in terms of social psychology.

MrMagoo

Very interesting stuff.

Thanks a million