Cognitive Dissonance and Doomsday Cults
What a doomsday cult can teach us about our ability to admit we’re wrong
One of my favourite stories is the birth of cognitive dissonance. The science of human beings’ inability to admit they are wrong. It’s a story of a 1950s cult called the Seekers led by a lady called Dorothy Martin who had the ability to channel communications from an alien race known as the Guardians. The Guardians had told her that the world was about to be wiped out in a flood but they were prepared to come and rescue some humans.
Doomsday cults tend to be beset by a number of problems. First of all, the date where the world ends tends to be far enough in the future that it’s hard to disprove the central premise of the cult. Secondly, cults tend to be a bit, well, cultish. They aren’t welcoming of outsiders on the whole. In this case, the date of the world was set for December 21st 1954 and the cult had decided to give humanity a solid chance by going to the press to do them the courtesy of letting them know. They were also infiltrated by a psychologist called Leo Festinger who went on the write a book laying out the principles of cognitive dissonance based on his experience called When Prophecy Fails.
Now, as cults go, The Seekers weren’t bad people. They didn’t sexually abuse or enslave children. They didn’t stockpile automatic weapons. They just…
