PSY 240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Prosocial Behavior, Leo Ryan, Mass Suicide

• School: Stony Brook University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 240
• Professor: Marci Lobel

Document Summary

While they were there they heard much praise. 2 families wanted to leave but they were killed by gunfire as they were leaving including the congressman: jim initiates the revolutionary suicide, jim jones then was described as a cult leader- fanatics. How do we explain this mass suicide: jim jones" fanatic personality and vulnerability of followers (true but not 100% the reason, there were audio/video recordings of this ritual. If we can"t live in peace then let"s die in peace. It"s not suicide, it"s revolutionary. : compliance: punished and publicly humiliated if anyone went against him; threats. Just one person disagreeing reduces people"s compliance by so much. Even family members would tell on each other for disagreement; he would eliminate family loyalty. Children were assigned to other members and also parents forced to give up custody. Jim jones went around the country holding public services. He was psychic about ppl- but it was all staged.