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Essay on Jonestown
- What social psychological theory or theories best explains the Jonestown incident and why?
Both group polarization and groupthink were present in the group. Group polarization is the propensity of a group to form views and maker certain decisions that are more severe as compared to the individual tendencies of the group members (Fleet, 143). Nevertheless, what best describes the Jonestown incident is groupthink. The incident of 1978’s suicidal massacre of 912 people, the followers of Rev. Jones, in my assumption was the aftermath of groupthink. Under the groupthink processes, the members of the group are bonded by strong cohesiveness and this occurs when the group members are involved to a greater extent in a cohesive in-group. The group members then make every effort for unanimity instead of logical and realistic thinking.
Thus, groupthink is a process of “thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when he members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of actions” (Janis, 9). What the Jonestown went through was the false impression of imperviousness that was shared by almost all of the members of the group, except the ones that left with Congressman Ryan (Jonestown’s website), mutual efforts so as to justify the actions of the group and their reluctance to go through their selected supposition again, they had the uncontested belief in the group’s intrinsic morality and had stereotyped opinions regarding the rival leaders as being bad, of evil character or being ignorant of the reality, they were engaged in the repression of the opposition within the group by the direct influence of the defacers, they mostly had the self-censorship of the opinions that in fact diverged from the obvious agreement of the group and were inflicted by the illusion of harmony within the group and in all they had the self-nominated mind guards (Janis, 197-8)....
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