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I was today years old when I learned that the scholar who defined the term “cognitive dissonance” did so after successfully predicting that many members of a doomsday cult would double down on their beliefs after a predicted apocalypse failed to occur.
He theorized that those who have not made a strong commitment to the prophecy with quietly lose their face, well, those that I’m giving away all their possessions would double down on the belief, no matter what.
Festinger’s hypothesis would be named cognitive dissonance, and flew in the faith of what of every existing theory of motivation and human behavior.
