Abstract
We study a transcript of discourse recorded on an open mic during the mass suicide/murder of 909 members of a religious community in Jonestown in 1978. The ‘Jonestown massacre’ is often cited in psychology textbooks as a warning example of how powerful situations and charismatic leaders can lead ordinary people to extreme and destructive behaviours. These accounts suggest that individuals lose control of reason and will such that their behaviour becomes subject to outside control. We develop an alternative explanation of the mass killing as identity-based collective action. Our analysis shows how a shared understanding of the community's situation and the options available to them were constructed and contested in discourse. We demonstrate how Jim Jones served as impresario, entrepreneur and champion of identity, recognizing his followers' agency, initiating collective meaning-making and mobilizing action. Jones engaged his followers in jointly constructing the situation as hopeless, developing a shared view of their situated social identity and collectively formulating the identity-congruent solution of collective suicide as a hopeful act of collective agency. Our analysis points to the importance of addressing the conditions that sustain narratives of collective hopelessness and helping groups successfully choose non-extremist pathways out of hopelessness.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2121-2134 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | British Journal of Social Psychology |
Volume | 63 |
Issue number | 4 |
Early online date | 19 Jun 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 Oct 2024 |
Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available in Internet Archive at https://archive.org/,reference number ptc1978-11-18.flac16. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: The Jonestown Death Tape (FBI No. Q 042), https://archive.org/detai ls/ptc1978-11-18.flac16.Keywords
- collective action
- discourse
- leadership
- social identity
- social influence
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology