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Making Sense of the Nonsensical: An Analysis of Jonestown

The events that occurred at Jonestown has raised the question gHow could such a thing happen?h(Osherow p.1) more specifically why did people do what they did? And what were they thinking?. To try to answer these questions we need to look at it from a social psychological point of view.
Some people look at the events as the gproduct of obedience, of people complying with the orders of a leader and reacting to the threat of force.h (Osherow p.3). The leader, Jim Jones made use of harsh punishments which made the option of leaving defecting or rebelling unthinkable. Jim Jones demanded complete dedication from his followers and took steps to completely discourage all resistance and rebellion within the group. As shown from the Milgram situation (1965) gpresence of a gdisobedienth partner greatly reduced the extent to which most subjects obey instructionsh. Also another study done by Asch in 1955, s...