>>13924440• Abraham Biggs Jr., age 19, had been posting to an online discussion board for
2 years. Unhappy about his future and that a relationship had ended, Biggs announced
on camera that he was going to commit suicide. He took an overdose
of drugs and linked to a live video feed from his bedroom. None of his hundreds
of observers called the police for more than 10 hours; some egged him on.
Paramedics reached him too late, and Biggs died.
• In the mid-1970s, several hundred members of the Peoples Temple, a
California-based religious cult, immigrated to Guyana under the guidance of their
leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, where they founded an interracial community
called Jonestown. But within a few years some members wanted out, an outside
investigation was about to get Jones in trouble, and the group’s solidarity was
waning. Jones grew despondent and, summoning everyone in the community,
spoke to them about the beauty of dying and the certainty that everyone would
meet again in another place. The residents willingly lined up in front of a vat containing
a mixture of Kool-Aid and cyanide, and drank the lethal concoction. (The
legacy of this massacre is the term “drinking the Kool-Aid,” referring to a person’s
blind belief in ideology.) A total of 914 people died, including 80 babies and the
Reverend Jones.
Why do many people help complete strangers? Is Kristen right that opposites attract
or is she just kidding herself? Why did Oscar come to love his fraternity brothers
despite the hazing they had put him through? Why would people watch a troubled
young man commit suicide in front of their eyes, when, by simply flagging the video
to alert the website, they might have averted a tragedy? How could hundreds of people
be induced to kill their own children and then commit suicide?
All of these stories—the good, the bad, the ugly—pose fascinating questions about
human behavior. In this book, we will show you how social psychologists go about
answering them
