Suddenly, the despair vanished. Instead of feeling foolish, the cult members became more fervent than ever. They didn't just stay in the group; they began calling newspapers and proselytizing on street corners, more desperate to convince others than they had been before the failed prophecy. The Theory is Born
To prove this wasn't just about cults, Festinger and James Carlsmith conducted a now-famous experiment. They asked students to perform a mind-numbingly boring task: turning wooden pegs on a board for an hour. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Festinger saw a unique opportunity to test a growing hunch. What happens to a person’s mind when their deeply held conviction is proven—irrefutably—to be wrong? He went undercover. The Midnight Crisis Suddenly, the despair vanished
To stop the pain of that inconsistency, we must change something. We can: Leave the cult (the rarest path). Change the belief: "The prophecy was wrong." Add new cognitions: "We saved the world with our faith". The peg-turning experiment The Theory is Born To prove this wasn't