When a cult's prophecy fails, believers get more devoted, not less

In 1954, Leon Festinger infiltrated a group that believed the world would end on a specific date. When the date passed uneventfully, the group didn't abandon its belief — it recruited harder and preached more publicly than before. Holding two contradictory beliefs is so uncomfortable that we'll rewrite the evidence before we'll rewrite the belief.

— Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken & Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails — 1956
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