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. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book.
| 条件 | 效果 |
|---|---|
| “1. A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he or she behaves.” 成员必须对其信条深信不疑，并据以采取切实而有关的行动。 | 使得信念更难以改变。 |
| “2. The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual’s commitment to the belief.” 信徒必须委身于信仰；也就是说，为了信仰，他必须采取过某种难以还原的行动。一般而言，他所采取的行动越重大，越难以还原，个人对信念的委身就越强。 | 使得信念更难以改变。 |
| “3. The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.” 信念必须足够具体，与真实世界有着足够的关联度，因此某些事件可以毫不含糊地驳斥其信念。 | Exposes believers to the possibility of their belief being disproved. 信徒所持有的信念可能被事实所否定。 |
| “4. Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.” 不可辩驳的证伪已经发生，持有此信念的信徒也已经明白知晓其事实。 | Exerts pressure on believers to abandon their belief. 专家压力迫使信徒放弃自己的信念。 |
| “5. The individual believer must have social support.” 个体信徒必须得到社会支持。 | While an individual might be unable to resist the pressure to abandon their belief in the face of disconfirming facts, a group might be able to support each other to maintain the belief. 在否定的事实面前，单独的个体可能无法抗拒放弃信念的压力，但一个群体可以彼此支持，以维持信念。 |
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 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.” 当以上所有条件都成立，他们的假设是，信徒将会发现自己即使面对不可辩驳的否定性证据也难以放弃信念，反而会利用可能的社会支持来维持信念，并更为热心地“传福音”引导新人加入，因为“如果可以说服更多的人相信这个信仰系统是正确的，那么显然它可以不顾事实地正确。”
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. 研究者认为，在Martin及其追随者的群体中，这几个条件均可能成立。在这样的条件下，如果该团体的领袖能够让其他人事先接受其基本信仰前设，增加群体的聚合力，在预言落空之后造成的分裂效果将会减轻。研究小组预测，在不可避免的预言落空之后，该群体会出现一个更加热情的宣教运动，以寻求社会支持，减少认知失调的痛苦。