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When Prophecy Fails

by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, Stanley Schachter

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 · rating details · 112 ratings · 24 reviews

"We've all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We're familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed thru the most devastating attacks. But human resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a beli...more

Paperback, 253 pages

Published January 1st 1964 by Torchbooks/Harper & Row (NY) (first published January 1st 1956)

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Oct 19, 2012 Chad Kettner rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, science

In 1954 Leon Festinger, an experimental social psychologist, invented and tested the theory of cognitive dissonance. "Cognitive Dissonance" is today a recognized term for having a state of mind which seeks to deny an inconvenient truth - perhaps someone with a smoking habit denies the health risks of smoking, or someone with a gambling habit denies their overall losses, or whatever else. In Festinger's original study, "When Prophecy Fails", he discusses a cult who denies the continued failures o...more In 1954 Leon Festinger, an experimental social psychologist, invented and tested the theory of cognitive dissonance. "Cognitive Dissonance" is today a recognized term for having a state of mind which seeks to deny an inconvenient truth - perhaps someone with a smoking habit denies the health risks of smoking, or someone with a gambling habit denies their overall losses, or whatever else. In Festinger's original study, "When Prophecy Fails", he discusses a cult who denies the continued failures of their prophecies that Jesus would return to earth on a flying saucer.

The study is quite clinical in nature, and therefore a bit slow throughout - but when it comes to driving home the point of cognitive dissonance it does an excellent job. The daily meetings of the deluded group were infiltrated by research students assigned by Festinger. The book records the students' observations - the prophecies that were made and the responses to the failures. The refusal to acknowledge the disappointment at Jesus' non-arrival (even in the midst of specific dates being passed by) and the world's continued existence gave rise to the term 'cognitive dissonance'.

Festinger points out the parallels with the Millerites from the 1840s, a much larger group whose End Times prophecy failed - but instead of acknowledging they were wrong, the prophecies were simply explained away and gave rise to the Seventh-day Adventist church. Festinger's core argument is that when nearly everything is invested in the hopes of a prophecy - even a blatant failure gives rise to new hopes and new interpretations - and larger cases of cognitive dissonance. As one character from the cult described in the book said during the study: "I've had to go a long way. I've given up just about everything. I've cut every tie: I've burned every bridge. I've turned my back on the world. I can't afford to doubt. I have to believe. And there isn't any other truth" (pg. 170).

It's important to point out that Festinger doesn't mock or make fun of the study group in any way - even though their beliefs are beyond laughable (Jesus was going to come on a space ship!). Instead, Festinger uses it as a touching account of what can happen to ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances, and clearly empathizes with the struggles the group endured for their failed beliefs.(less)

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Feb 19, 2009 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

On oft repeated chestnut in the perpetual debate between Christianity and its non-believers goes something like this: There are three possibilities about Jesus and/or the Apostles or Early Christians. They were either madmen, liars or telling the truth. Each of the former possibilities is then addressed with what might not be terrible arguments and, thus discounted, the third branch of the argument is arrived at as being true. I have never heard the previous two possibilities adequately dismisse...more On oft repeated chestnut in the perpetual debate between Christianity and its non-believers goes something like this: There are three possibilities about Jesus and/or the Apostles or Early Christians. They were either madmen, liars or telling the truth. Each of the former possibilities is then addressed with what might not be terrible arguments and, thus discounted, the third branch of the argument is arrived at as being true. I have never heard the previous two possibilities adequately dismissed, but the real issue with the argument, its real flaccidness, is that it is a false trichotomy. Humans are not either mad, liars or truth tellers - they slide effortlessly between the three states often within the span of single sentence, act or feeling. But most importantly, the argument fails to address the most complicating of factors: madness, lies and truth may manifest in a social group without any single person being obviously responsible for any of them. It is this phenomenon which makes "When Prophecy Fails" most interesting, since it describes the rise and counter-intuitive climax (after a prophesied global flood fails to occur) of a real UFO Cult in the Great Lakes area around the 1950s. The purpose of the work was originally scholarly - the authors wished to study whether disconfirmation - a shocking, undeniable reality which invalidates the beliefs of a group of people, can actually increase the fervor with which the believers prosylatize others into their belief system, as seems to be the case from several historical examples sited in the introduction (most notably the Millerites). Whether the observations of the authors, who infiltrated the cult by posing as believers, bear out this conclusion is of secondary importance (although the argument is good that they do, so far as these things can be born out). The real meat of this book is the fascinating insight it gives into group madness. We see the cult develop from a band of mystics and Scientologist housewives into a coherent, self deluding movement. For those into this kind of thing, the book also provides insight into the connections between Theosophy, Dianetics/Scientology, the 1950's UFO phenomenon, and the New Age Movement which are also fascinating. I recommend the hell out of this book.
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Feb 07, 2013 T-bone rated it 1 of 5 stars

I love cults. I have belonged to many and hope to join more in the future. Cults are a great way to meet new people. So imagine my disgust when I realized this book was not about a cult, but about a bunch of delusional psychologists who infiltrate a perfectly rational doomsday group so they can peddle their ludicrous "research" as a legitimate contribution to learning. I don't mind psychologists when they confine themselves to wondering why they themselves are crazy, but I do not abide them tryi...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Stringy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This report on cognitive dissonance was the beginning of the shift in psychology from Behaviourism to Cognitivism in the USA. The researchers observed a group expecting spacemen to pick them up before a predicted flood, to see how they'd react to being wrong. Behaviourism predicted they'd abandon their beliefs, but history shows people doubling-down on their belief system after being proved wrong. The idea was to find a group and observe them before and after such an event so a complete data set...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Isidore rated it 2 of 5 stars

As a glimpse into the largely unknown world of Eisenhower era mysticism, the book is fascinating. As an exemplification of cognitive dissonance, it is pretty much a failure. Festinger & Co.'s methodology was so flawed as to hopelessly compromise any conclusions they wished to draw.

Festinger heavily infiltrated and manipulated the cult. At one key moment, of the fourteen participants, no less than five were his secret "observers". Naturally, as even Festinger admits, the advent of so many "c...more As a glimpse into the largely unknown world of Eisenhower era mysticism, the book is fascinating. As an exemplification of cognitive dissonance, it is pretty much a failure. Festinger & Co.'s methodology was so flawed as to hopelessly compromise any conclusions they wished to draw.

Festinger heavily infiltrated and manipulated the cult. At one key moment, of the fourteen participants, no less than five were his secret "observers". Naturally, as even Festinger admits, the advent of so many "converts" into such a tiny group would have the distorting effect of greatly increasingly the commitment of the true believers. The observers were instructed to badger "Mrs. Keach", the leader of the cult, into firming up her very vague prophecies into an unequivocal prediction, so that Festinger could study the consequences of prophetic failure (at one point he alludes to the "awful possibility" that she might never make a sufficiently clear prophecy as to permit "disconfirmation"). In other words, he manipulated the cult leader into taking a position she would likely never have otherwise assumed. The fact that careers were ruined, that people were threatened with legal action and institutionalization, or forced to leave their homes to get away from the resultant public scandal does not appear to have raised any ethical qualms in Festinger and his associates.

Festinger went into this project with a preconceived theory about what would happen. When he reports what *did* happen, he downplays developments which are of no help to him, and plays up those which are, oversimplifying a complex situation. A vital part of his theory demands that the disillusioned cultists enter into active proselytizing as a means of averting the stress of cognitive dissonance. In this case they never did, and usually went out of their way NOT to proselytize. For the most part Festinger ignores this little problem. Toward the end, he concedes the expected proselytizing never occurred, but argues that the cult's decision to inform the media about their "message" following the failure of "Mrs. Keach"'s prophecy would fulfill his theory's requirements. The trouble is, the cult's recruitment of the media was atypical, measured, and brief in duration––scarcely the all-important emotional buttress his theory demands.

On the whole, "Mrs. Keach" and her friends come across as likable, well-meaning oddballs, Festinger and his agents as cold-blooded and unscrupulous, treating human beings as if they were lab rats, and not terribly scientific into the bargain. As for cognitive dissonance, it's an interesting and useful theory, but this book does not make a convincing case for it. It does show that people will rationalize their way out of challenges to cherished beliefs: ironically, this is as much true of Festinger & Co as it is of the cultists.(less)

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Aug 11, 2011 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

When Prophecy Fails is an interesting, if imperfect, look at cognitive dissonance in movements that experience disconfirmation of belief -- to put it another way, what happens when prophecies fail. After an interesting initial historical summary, the book for better or worse spends most of its time recounting the establishment and failure of a 1950's UFO cult in great, sometimes painful, detail. The story is interesting at first, but eventually both the sheer meticulousness and the weight of the...more

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Jun 03, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: apocolypse, culture, nonfiction, psychology, skepticism

You're a good person, right? Of course you are, I never doubted it for a moment. We all like to think were good people - fair, honest, generous, all that. Very few people, if asked, would say, "Well, I'm a right bastard and I don't care who knows it!"

So imagine that you - a good person - do something bad. Genuinely bad. You cheat on your spouse. You lie to a friend. You steal from your boss. You commit an act which, if someone else did it, you would roundly condemn them, forcing them into public...more

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Jan 31, 2009 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Nobody could write this book today. The researchers and their graduate students document their undercover penetration of a Apocalypse cult in pitch-perfect, meticulous detail; the only problem is that they violate just about every principle of scientific inquiry and social psychological ethics in the process. Despite its scientific shortcomings, the book is a fascinating and occasionally touching portrait of people who are desperately looking for self-validation in an impersonal world. The dry h...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Jack Barrow rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this as research for my next novel in which I'm planning to write about an end of the world cult. Strangely I'd written an essay on Festinger for my very first assignment in my Open University degree some time in about 1994. Years later when a friend told me about cognitive dissonance theory I didn't make the connection. Even stranger, it was on December 21st 2012 when everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar so called end of the world ( http://www.aquarius-atlanta.com/artic... ) tha...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Lars Roest rated it 4 of 5 stars

I discovered this book by looking up the the term "cognitive dissonance" on Wikipedia.
I am interested in this since I at 18 years old was persuaded to join a cult called the "Church" of Scientology.
That fact changed the direction of my life considerably and was the reason why I at 20 "immigrated" to the US.
I found the book a little tedious at times with its detailed descriptions. But overall it was an interesting read.
Cognitive dissonance have very broad applications in life. The term doesn'...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Renee rated it 3 of 5 stars

Being a psychology nerd, I picked this book up during the May 21st rapture scare at the suggestion of an NPR article I read one morning because I wanted to see what happens to people who have faith in something so strong, but are proven to be wrong. When Prophecy Fails is the study which laid the foundation of one of the most important and groundbreaking theories in psychology -- Cognitive Dissonance Theory.

The first half of the book was very interesting. It gave brief, yet thorough, history on...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Marita rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Bryn really wanted me to read this book and after the controversial Betrayal book I was ready. Very interesting and entertaining story, but since it is an actual case study it was not very enjoyable to read. Cognitive dissonance is very real and I was shocked to read it does not nessessarily lead to abandoment of belives quite the opposite. I should have known that since this country is so full of religious people, is it because americans are so social??!!

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Jan 05, 2011 Alex R rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Psychologists infiltrate a group whose leader believes she receives messages from aliens; they must prepare for the destruction of Earth, where the close followers will be transported off Earth in the nick of time by the aliens. This is the book largely responsible for popularizing the idea of cognitive dissonance, and it's fascinating. The story could be better told -- it's written by social scientists proving their hypothesis, not journalists writing a good story -- but it's fascinating and hi...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book is excellent, but there has to be a very large caveat. "When" is a true story written in detail about a group of people who believed that the United States would be deluged by a flood on December 21st, but they would prior t that they would be taken up to another planet by flying saucers. One woman believed that she was being communicated with by spacemen through "automatic righting." The author enabled several observers to infiltrate the group so they would learn firsthand how the stor...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Reed rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychology

Randomly, this ended up being the first psychology book I ever read. Fascinating study done by undercover psychologists who managed to infiltrate an ET-worshipping cult (akin to scientology) and chart the progress of their decaying prophecy. Anyone interested in the psychological phenomenon known as 'cognitive dissonance' would certainly get a kick out of this book!

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Jan 01, 2013 Maarten Koller rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nice read but mostly for those who are interested in the background story of cognitive dissonance. If you are interested in the phenomenon itself you might want to pick up 'Mistakes were made, but not by me'. I also wrote a more extensive review in Dutch on www.Kloptdatwel.nl publish on the 21st December, 2012.

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Jan 05, 2012 Christian.scott rated it 5 of 5 stars

I used to take books from the free shelf at a used bookstore, this was a rare gem. It's a very personal account of an earnest atomic-age American cult, told without sensationalism or mockery. Helped me understand a lot of things to do with faith and denial.

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Mar 22, 2013 Deva rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's very strange that the human mind works such that when people are proved unequivocally wrong, they find ways to double down on their beliefs. Also going for this book: UFO's, automatic writing, seances, and the apocalypse.

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Jul 25, 2011 Nathan added it

Fascinating account of the way our brains work. What happens when a belief we hold is clearly disproved? This psychologist group investigates a case study example. Scholarly, yet easily readable. A good read on cognitive dissonance.

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Dec 13, 2012 Bryan Murphy rated it 5 of 5 stars

A classic, and a very timely one, too, with the end of the world approaching yet again. Helps explain why people continue to believe in woo when it never delivers.

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Mar 04, 2009 Valerie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good, but too scholarly-like for light-reading. It's interesting to read a study done on a religious group that continues to thrive and strengthen despite prophecy after prophecy after prophecy failing.

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Mar 05, 2011 Erik Graff rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: millenarians

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: psychology

What an interesting topic! An American cult claims the end of the world is immiment and sets the date. The date comes...and goes. What happens to the members of the cult?

Festinger et al. insinuated colleagues into this UFO cult to observe just this and found that many were actually reinforced in their delusional belief system by its very failure. Somehow Festinger et alia managed to discuss this without writing an engrossing book...

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Jun 21, 2009 Oliver rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sociology-psychology

Originally published in 1956, it was a cutting edge study of Leon Festinger's now famous theories that formed the basis of cognitive dissonance. The book follows a small group of a flying saucer cult that believes that end times is near. It would have been neat to follow the believers for longer than a few months, but that's obviously not the intent of the study or book. I've watched too many 'Where Are They Now?' episodes.

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Jan 25, 2013 Ricardo rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, non-fiction

Interesting book on an important concept. However, the narrative of Mrs. Keech's group is too detailed, to the point of being almost just an academic exercise. In contrast, this same academic value is diminished by the problems in the research methodology already mentioned by others.

If you're just curious about the theory, download the Kindle version's free chapters on Amazon.

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Jan 04, 2008 Darcie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

This book should be read by anyone who has any kind of contact with New Agers.

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May 16, 2013 Romy marked it as to-read

Shelves: nonfiction, sociology, religion

May 10, 2013 Samuel Sanchinel marked it as to-read

May 09, 2013 Doug marked it as to-read

May 08, 2013 Tyler Prete added it · review of another edition

May 03, 2013 Adro marked it as to-read

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About Leon Festinger

Leon Festinger was interested in science at a young age, and decided to pursue a career in psychology. He received his bachelor's degree from City College of New York and went on to Iowa State University for his master's degree and his Ph.D. (which he received in 1942). For the next several years he made his living teaching at different universities until he went to Stanford in 1955.

At Stanford, F...more

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