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Cognitive Dissonance: Difference between revisions
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==UFO Cult== | ==UFO Cult== | ||
Leon Festinger | Leon Festinger, a social psychologist at the University of Minnesota who first coined the term "cognitive dissonance", related an account of the followers of a UFO cult as reality clashed with their fervent belief in an impending apocalypse. | ||
In the summer of 1954, Festinger was reading the morning newspaper when he encountered a short article about Marion Keech, a housewife in suburban Minneapolis who was convinced that the apocalypse was coming. Keech had started getting messages from Sananda, an extra-terrestrial from the planet Clarion, a few years before, but now the messages were getting eerily specific. According to the alien, human civilization would be destroyed by a massive flood at midnight on December 20, 1954. | |||
Keech’s prophecy soon gained a small band of followers. They trusted her messages, some of them quit their jobs and sold their homes. Her followers didn’t bother buying Christmas presents or making arrangements for New Years Eve, since nothing would exist by then. | |||
Festinger immediately realized that Keech would make a great research subject. He decided to infiltrate the group by pretending to be a true believer. What Festinger wanted to study was the reaction of the cultist on December 21, when the world wasn’t destroyed and no spaceship appeared. Would Keech recant? What would happen when her prophesy failed? | |||
On the night of December 20, Keech’s followers gathered in her home and waited for instructions from the aliens. Midnight inexorably approached. When the clock read 12:01 and there were still no aliens, the cultists began to worry. A few began to cry. The aliens had let them down. But then Keech received a new telegram from outer space, which she quickly transcribed on her notepad. “''This little group sitting all night long had spread so much light'',” the aliens told her, “''that god saved the world from destruction. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room.''” It was their stubborn faith that had prevented the apocalypse. | |||
They faced acute cognitive dissonance: had they been the victim of a hoax? Had they donated their worldly possessions in vain? Most members chose to believe something less dissonant to resolve reality not meeting their expectations: they believed that the aliens had given earth a second chance, and the group was now empowered to spread the word that earth-spoiling must stop. | |||
Although Keech’s predictions had been falsified, the group was now more convinced than ever that the aliens were real. The group dramatically increased their proselytism despite the failed prophecy, sending out press releases and recruiting new believers. | |||
This is how they reacted to the dissonance of being wrong: by being more sure than ever that they were right. They were so committed to their beliefs – they had so much invested in the idea that the world would end – that dissonant facts made them double-down. It would be too painful to be wrong, and so they convinced themselves that they were right. | |||
==Smoking== | ==Smoking== | ||