The Paradoxes of Heaven's Gate Source: by Donelson R. Forsyth Copyright 2000

Heaven's Gate was a doomsday cult centered in California. 21 women and 18 men voluntarily committed suicide in three groups on three successive days starting on 1997-MAR-23. Most were in their 40's; the rest covered an age range of 26 to 72. 1 Two months later, two additional members, Charles Humphrey and Wayne Cooke attempted suicide in a hotel room a few miles from the Rancho Santa Fe mansion; Cooke succeeded. Humphrey tried again in the Arizona desert during 1998-FEB and was successful. Why would 39 people would make so permanent a decision of committing suicide? A social psychological analysis of the Heaven's Gate incident requires (at least) three parts. First, why is the public, in general, so intrigued by the incident, and why do most people misunderstand it? Second, what group level processes operate in such groups? Are these processes so powerful that they could induce a sane person into taking what appears to be an insane action? Third, why would a group of people make such a horrific decision, with such drastic consequences? (Editor's Note: This final question is not included in this reading. Why are people fascinated by the Heaven's Gate group? The Heaven's Gate group is news--big news. Newspapers around the world showed the special morgue truck needed to carry the multiple suicides. The groups' web page was flooded with Internet hits. The media flocked to the site. Other news--wars, weather, and the basketball playoffs--took a backseat to suicide. Why are people intrigued by groups that commit mass suicide? The intrigue stems, in part, from their unusualness. But the intrigue also derives from misunderstanding. First, we explain away the suicide of an individual by blaming illness, pain, and depression, but these explanations don't work very well when a group takes its life. We can understand (although perhaps not condone the actions of) people who, suffering incredible pain with a fatal disease, ending their lives. We can also understand that people suffering from psychological problems-- such as deep, unrelenting depression--may become so confused, so negative, so distressed over who they are that they escape their own existence. But the Heaven's Gate group wasn't fatally ill. The members weren't depressed and confused. So the assumptions that we usually rely on to explain away a suicide don't help us explain their actions. If they weren't suffering, if they weren't depressed, then why would they commit suicide? We are puzzled.

Second, we think of suicide as the most irrational of behavior. Except in cases of extreme pain when the person is terminally ill, we assume that the person is dazed, confused, not thinking clearly- -and, indeed, people who commit suicide often are dazed, confused, and not thinking clearly. But a group, by its very nature, cannot be as irrational as an individual. Thirty nine people had to discuss how they would die. They had make plans: How would they do it? Who would be in charge of removing the plastic bags and shrouding the bodies? Who would go first, who would go last? How could a group discuss such things? The very idea of group suicide is paradoxical, because we assume that suicide is irrational, and that groups are rational. We understand when groups make bad decisions or work ineffectively, but to commit suicide? Unlikely. We realize that individuals commit suicide regularly--so frequently that only a movie or rock star's self-immolation is newsworthy. But a suicidal group is a rarity. Third, because suicide is such horrible outcome--the ending of a life and any opportunity for further development--we intuitively seek a dramatic explanation. Indeed, in 1978 a representative sample of Americans were asked "Why do you think people become involved in cults?" (Gallup, 1978, p. 275). Most people blamed the personality characteristics and flaws of the cult members. They were seeking a "father figure;" they were "unhappy" or "gullible" or "searching for a deeper meaning to life;" they were "mentally disturbed," "escapists," or addicted to drugs." And now people are arguing that its the Internet that did it: The WEB is to blame for the spread of bizarre ideas about UFOs and Christianity. These explanations are all simplistic ones--they demean the group members, blaming their personalities or their weaknesses since their actions make no sense to us. When we read about the individuals in Heaven's Gate we assume they are weak, gullible people who are easily influenced by others. When we read that 39 people committed suicide, we immediately assume that some leader brainwashed them. That they were tortured, forced to watch indoctrination videos, injected with mind-altering drugs, or deprived of sleep for days. Yet they weren't. These three factors explain the macabre fascination for the Heaven's Gate group. First, we can't explain their behavior with our usual stockpile of beliefs about suicide: they weren't suffering, they weren't crazy. Second, group suicide is always a paradox, because we believe that groups are more rational than individuals, and suicide is irrational. Third, we follow the unfolding story searching for clues that some dramatic, bizarre forces--a charismatic leader, drugs, the WEB--caused the behavior. Only by finding a powerful--and incorrect--explanation can we feel comfortable. Why do people let groups influence them so dramatically? Picture in your mind a member of Heaven's Gate. Who do you see? A brainwashed devotee mumbling her prayers mindlessly. A weak-kneed

follower who blindly follows Elder Jonathan's orders? A truth-seeker who is so desperate to understand the meaning of life that she will accept an odd version replete with allusions to spaceships and UFOs? These images of people who take part in nontraditional religious and social groups are unfair exaggerations. Although the word cult summons up thoughts of brainwashed automatons so intimidated by a charismatic leader that they can't stand up for their rights, this stereotype is naive and incomplete. Everyone's actions are controlled, in part, by social factors, and the actions of members of so-called cults require no reference to the "magical powers" of a leader or the "twisted" personalities of the followers. What are these group-level processes? Informational influence occurs when other people provide us with information that we then use to make decisions and form opinions. If we spend years and years in the company of people who explain things in terms of UFOs and out-of-the-body experiences, we will in time begin to explain things in that way as well. Normative influence occurs when we tailor our actions to fit the social norms of the situation. We take such norms as "Do not tell lies" and "Help other people when they are in need" for granted, but some societies and some groups have different norms which are equally powerful and taken- for-granted. Normative influence accounts for the transmission of religious, economic, moral, political, and interpersonal beliefs across generations. Interpersonal influence is used in those rare instances when someone violates the group's norms. The individual who publicly violates a group's norm will likely meet with reproach or even be ostracized from the group. These three factors--informational, normative, and interpersonal influence-- explain nearly all social behaviors, including those exhibited by people in atypical religious groups. First, informational influence: Studies of cult members find that they typically rely on the group for answers to personally important questions. One member of a religious group describes his first meeting with a cult as: It was strange, but the intensity of the two days left me much clearer about why I had been so uncertain, and where I might head for the future; it was as if a haze had been lifted. I began to understand things that had made no sense before, why most people rushed around for no reason, without any lasting sense of purpose. I had a sense that I could look for direction to my friends in the One-World Crusade. (quoted in M. Gallanter, 1989, p. 61, Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion, Oxford University Press). Second, normative influence: Members feel obligated to conform to group norms that encouraged friendliness, cooperation, and total acceptance of the principles of the group. Self-reports of conversions are very similar in that people begin as skeptics, recognizing that the ideas are possibly bizarre and "kooky." But over time they accept them as the their own. One writes: I "went along in all the activities because they were sincere people doing things for a good cause, even though sometimes it seemed silly." Eventually, though, he internalized the group's norms. Third, interpersonal influence: Cult members won't take no for an answers. Such groups are often isolated, intensely cohesive, and led by an individual

who brooks no disagreement. Nearly everyone recognizes that there is danger in "falling in" with the members of cult, for even though we believe that we are individualists who make up our own minds, we intuitively realize that such a group could change us from who were are now into one of "them." Studies of radical religious groups describe very similar dynamics across all the groups: intense cohesiveness, public statements of principles, pressure placed on anyone who dissents, ostracism from the group for disagreement, strong rewards for agreement with the group's ideals. I am the first to admit that an explanation that stress normal, everyday sorts of determinants of behavior seems inadequate to explain such abnormal, unusual behavior as mass suicide. Yet the law of parsimony requires nothing more if this basic account is sufficient. Informational, normative, and interpersonal influence processes guide us constantly. In ambiguous situations, other people's actions provide us with the social proof we need to make our own choices. If it's OK for them, we assume it must be OK for us. And should we fail to match the expectations of those around us, they will be pleased to guide us back to the right path. We may feel the need to dehumanize the group for its actions by calling them crazy or hypothesizing weird social forces that constrained them, but in the end their actions stem from the same processes that guide the behavior of the accountant crunching numbers for a client, the gang member facing down a rival, the soldier readying for another patrol, or the frat boy drinking to heavily at keg party.

questions:

1. Why are people interested in the behavior of atypical groups, such as the Heaven's Gate group?
2. Give examples of how the 3 factors identified as influential in groups can prompt a person to do something they would rather not do.
3. How can negative group behaviors, such as binge drinking in fraternities, be prevented by taking advantage of the 3 forms of social influence identified by the author?
4. What is your overall reaction to this reading?