What lessons from Jonestown?
“LESSONS FROM JONESTOWN” (November Monitor ) purports to be about “what happens when social psychology is placed in the wrong hands” and “how cults abuse social psychology research.” But the article does not cite a single instance of either phenomenon. Instead, it lists ways in which Jim Jones may have mastered the art of mind control by studying George Orwell and “through [Jones’s] natural understanding of social psychology”(emphasis added). It would also be easy to make the case that Hitler plunged Germany into a homicidal, genocidal and suicidal war through mass mind control–in his case with a fair amount of help from Josef Göbbels but none at all from social psychologists or even famous novelists. I have no doubt that social psychologists ought to study the misuse of their research findings and help develop ways of undoing and preventing the damage wrought by charlatans and fanatics. But the suggestion that the behavior of cult leaders is a result of psychological science data fal
