by The Open University
Available in 36 free installments
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Do you remember hearing about ?Heaven's Gate?, the Californian doomsday cult which combined elements of Christianity with belief in the existence of UFOs? (A number of popular TV programmes, including CSI and The Simpsons, have based storylines on this cult.) In March 1997, thirty-nine members of the group, led by Marshal Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles, committed suicide in the belief that their souls would be transferred to a spaceship hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Most of the cult members had severed contact with their families and had sold their worldly belongings. They had committed themselves to a celibate life, with eight of the men submitting to voluntary castration (seemingly in preparation for a new gender-free level of existence).
Why did these group members engage in such extreme behaviours? Had they been brainwashed? Were they just weak and vulnerable, in effect easy targets for manipulation? While psychologists offer a variety of explanations, most would recognise a combination of emotional and social factors at work and most would say that these go beyond the individual, their personality and their roles. Cult bonds are often created through such factors as the emotional attachment to the group and fear of powerful leaders making people feel dependent on the group (Margaret Singer, 1995). People can be highly attracted by the security offered by membership of a group, where friends are apparently all around you and you feel cared for and safe.
It's worth looking more deeply at how social psychologists have explored the ways in which groups and group identity influence the way people think and act. In this section you explore different strands of research to do with ?in-groups/out-groups?, and ?group pressure and conformity?.
The two activities you did in Section 4 show how we associate ourselves with several different social categories and groups. These group identifications can promote a sense of identity and belonging ? identities which help us define ourselves and others to define us. They can also raise our self-esteem and sense of status. The sense of group identity is then enhanced when we make comparisons between people like ?us? (the in-group) and people who are different, ?them? (the out-group). You can see this ?us? and ?them? thinking in many of the conflicts around the world today.
You can also see this thinking in everyday life, for instance played out with rival gangs or sporting teams. Teenage fashion is another great example. Consider, for instance, ?skateboard culture? and the dress code of this image-conscious group described by Janine Hunter (2006):
Members of the group are dressed in a very relaxed and informal style. Baggy jeans, T-shirts, maybe a hooded top and a key chain hanging from the side of a leg. Some have a favourite band or rock legend printed on their T-shirt, whilst others have a logo? Some of the skaters [are] wearing cut off shorts or rolled up jeans to three-quarter length, showing off their socks and trainers.
(Hunter, 2006)
Here is how one skateboarder describes the groupings demonstrating that group identity influences not only clothes but also the behaviour and ?style? that group members adopt:
?there's the punk skaters and then there are the rap hip-hop skaters and then ? there are the people that are just, I dunno, whatever. Erm, basically you belong to one of those groups, you know, and it's the punk skaters that tend to be the ones that just throw themselves down the steps and do hand rails and stuff ? and hip hop skaters tend to be like all techy, flippy crap and stuff ?
(Hunter, 2006)
