When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members' coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members' beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations. Later archival work has alleged that many of the book's core claims are based on fabrications or exaggerations.
Overview Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter were already studying the effects of prophecy disconfirmation on groups of believers when they read a story in a local newspaper headlined "Prophecy from Planet. Clarion Call to City: Flee That Flood. It'll Swamp us on Dec. 21". The prophecy came from Dorothy Martin (1900–1992), a Chicago housewife who practised automatic writing, and it outlined a catastrophe predicted for a specific date in their near future. Seeing an opportunity to test their theories with a contemporary case study, the research team infiltrated Martin's followers to collect data before, during, and after the time the prophecy would be refuted. Martin claimed to be receiving messages from superior beings from a planet she referred to as Clarion. A recently published book, Aboard a Flying Saucer by UFO contactee Truman Bethurum, had described his alleged interactions with beings from a planet also named Clarion. The messages received by Martin included a prophecy that Lake City and large portions of the United States, Canada, Central America, and Europe would be destroyed by a flood before dawn on December 21, 1954. Through the restrained recruitment activities of Charles Laughead (a college doctor in Michigan) and other acquaintances, Martin was supported in her mediumship by a small group of believers. Some of the believers took significant actions that indicated a high degree of commitment to the prophecy. Some left or lost their jobs, neglected or ended their studies, ended relationships and friendships with non-believers, gave away money, and/or disposed of possessions to prepare for their departure on a flying saucer, which they believed would rescue them and others before the flood. As anticipated by the research team, the prophesied date passed without any sign of the predicted flood, creating a dissonance between the group's commitment to the prophecy and the unfolding reality. Different members of the group reacted differently. Many of those with the highest levels of belief, commitment, and social support became more committed to their beliefs, began to court publicity in ways they had not before, and developed various rationalizations for the absence of the flood. Some others, with less prior conviction and commitment, and/or less access to ongoing group support, were less able to sustain or increase their previous levels of belief and involvement, and several left the group. The research team's findings were broadly in line with their initial hypothesis about how believers might react to a prophecy disconfirmation, depending on whether certain conditions were in place.
Study
Hypothesis Festinger, Riecken and Schachter used the study to test their theories on how people might be expected to behave when faced with a specific type of dissonance, arising from a failed prophecy. From historical examples, such as the Montanists, Anabaptists, Sabbateans, Millerites and the beginnings of Christianity, the team had seen that in some cases the failure of a prophecy, rather than causing a rejection of the original belief system, could lead believers to increase their personal commitment, and also increase their efforts to recruit others into the belief. They identified five conditions that they proposed could lead to this type of reaction:
In the case of all conditions being in place, their hypothesis was that believers would find it difficult to abandon their beliefs in the face of disconfirmation, would use their available social support to maintain their beliefs, and would try to increase consonance by recruitment through proselyting, on the grounds that "If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must after all be correct." The research team considered that all of the conditions were likely to be fulfilled in the case study involving Martin and her followers. In this case, if the group's leader could add consonant elements by converting others to the basic premise, then the magnitude of her dissonance following disconfirmation would be reduced. The research team predicted that the inevitable disconfirmation would be followed by an enthusiastic effort at proselyting to seek social support and lessen the pain of disconfirmation.
Methodology The study was principally qualitative in nature, with data collected through participant observation, without the permission of the people being observed. The authors of the study and a selection of paid observers infiltrated groups of believers in two locations, in order to collect data as trusted insiders. Posing as people with a genuine personal interest in flying saucers and the group's belief system, the observers built rapport with the group members, aiming to take as passive a role as possible whilst gathering information on the group. Between them, the observers aimed to be present at all key events. Following each notable occurrence, each observer would attempt to excuse themselves in order to write up their notes or record them on audiotape while their memory was still fresh. They would record their notes in a variety of locations, including the bathroom of the house, the porch, or in a nearby hotel room that had been rented for the purpose. In addition to their own notes, the observers collected artifacts such as originals or copies of automatic writing produced by Martin, and transcripts of taped telephone calls that the research subjects themselves had recorded and lent to the observers. In order to protect the privacy of the research subjects, the authors used pseudonyms for all group members and the locations of the study.
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