In general, I always cringe a little when I see that a scientific study has been called into question.
These days, especially in the United States (where being anti-science is considered a prerequisite for working in the federal government), the last thing the scientific endeavor needs is another black eye. It's bad enough when the scientists were trying their hardest to do things right, and simply misinterpreted the data at hand -- such as the recent study that might have invalidated the Nobel-Prize-winning research that demonstrated the accelerating expansion of the universe, and the existence of dark energy.
It's worse still when the researchers themselves apparently knew their work was bogus, and published it anyhow. It seems to validate everything Trump and his cronies are saying; the experts are all lying to you. The data is inaccurate or being misrepresented. Listen to us instead, we'd never lie.
Today, though, I came across an allegation that a very famous piece of research was based on what amounts to the researchers lying outright about what had happened in their study -- and if this debunking bears out, it will be about the best news we could have right now.
You ready?
You've probably all heard of the devastating paper called "When Prophecy Fails," published in 1956 by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. If you're a long-time follower of Skeptophilia, you might well have read about it here, because I've cited it more than once. The gist is that there was a UFO cult run by a woman named Dorothy Martin and a couple named Charles and Lillian Laughead. Martin claimed she was receiving telepathic communications from extraterrestrials, and attracted a group of people who were into her weird mix of UFOlogy and Christian End Times stuff. Well, after running this group for a time, she claimed she'd received word that there was going to be a catastrophic and deadly flood, but that the faithful were going to be picked up by spacecrafts and rescued -- on December 21, 1954.
Festinger, Riecken, and Schacter and several other paid observers infiltrated the cult, pretending to be true believers, and reported that when the 21st came and went, and -- surprise! -- no devastating flood and no flying saucers appeared, her followers' beliefs in her abilities were actually strengthened. She told them their faithfulness had persuaded God not to flood the place, so the failure of the prophecy was a point in her favor, not against.
The three psychologists came up with terms describing this apparent bass-ackwards response to what should have been a terrible blow to belief, terms which will be familiar to you all: cognitive dissonance and the backfire effect. Both refer to people's abilities to maintain their belief even in the face of evidence to the contrary -- and their tendency to double down when that edifice of faith is threatened.
Well, apparently that wasn't the actual way events played out.
A psychological researcher named Thomas Kelly has written a paper that basically debunks the entire study. Kelly became suspicious when he found that subsequent studies were unable to replicate the one done by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter (whom Kelly calls "FRS"):
Inspired by FRS, several other scholars would later observe other religious groups that had predicted apocalypses. Generally, they failed to replicate the findings of FRS. Shortly after the publication of "When Prophecy Fails," Hardyck and Braden (1962) investigated an apocalyptic sect of Pentecostals to see if the failed apocalypse would result in enduring conviction and proselytization, but it did not. Balch, Farnsworth, and Wilkins (1983) investigated a Baha'i group that inaccurately predicted an apocalypse and found that the failed prediction undermined the size, conviction, and enthusiasm of the group. Zygmunt (1970) reviewed the proselytization efforts of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a group which has predicted the apocalypse multiple times, and found that failed prediction led to reduced proselytization. Singelenberg (1989) also found that failed prophecies harmed proselytization efforts among the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Kelly got access to Leon Festinger's files, including reams of notes that were unpublished, and found that not only did the Martin/Laughead cult not come together with strengthened faith in the way he and his co-authors had described, within six months the entire thing had collapsed and disbanded. In other words; the researchers seem to have lied about the facts of the case, not just their interpretation. Here's what Kelly has to say:
The authors of "When Prophecy Fails" had a theory that when faced with the utter disconfirmation of their religious beliefs, believers would soldier on, double down, and ramp up the proselytization. And the authors had ample resources to shape the cult’s behavior and beliefs. Brother Henry [Riecken's alias while he was a cult member] steered Martin and the others at pivotal meetings. The serendipitous, almost supernatural, arrival of Liz, Frank, and other paid observers buttressed the faith of the cultists. The sheer quantity of research observers in the small group gave them substantial influence. After the prophecy failed, Henry was able to prod Martin into writing the Christmas message and inspire belief in the supernatural by posing as the “earthly verifier,” an emissary of the "Space Brothers."
But even with all this influence, the study didn’t go as planned. The group collapsed; belief died. It did not persevere. What did persevere was FRS’s determination to publish their work and Festinger’s determination to use it to launch the theory of cognitive dissonance. Did any of Festinger, Riecken, or Schachter still believe at that point? History is silent.
The full scope and variety of the misrepresentations and misconduct of the researchers needed the unsealed archives of Festinger to emerge; the full story could not be written until now. But the reputation of "When Prophecy Fails" should not even have survived its first decade.
Now, Kelly's work is new enough that I'm fully expecting it to be challenged; Festinger et al.'s theory of cognitive dissonance is so much a part of modern psychological understanding that I doubt it'll be discarded without a fight. But if even a fraction of what Kelly claims is vindicated, the FRS backfire effect study will have to be completely reconsidered -- just as we've had to reconsider a number of other famous psychological studies that have been partially or completely called into question, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment, the "Little Albert" Experiment, and the Milgram Experiment.
My reason for being jubilant when I read this is not because I wish any kind of stain on the reputations of three famous psychological researchers. It's that if the FRS study in fact didn't demonstrate a backfire effect -- if even being infiltrated by fake cult members who pretended to be enthusiastic true believers, and who encouraged the (real) members into keeping the faith, still didn't buoy up their damaged beliefs -- well, it means that humans can learn from experience, doesn't it? That faced with evidence, even people in faith-based belief systems can change their minds.
And I, for one, find this tremendously encouraging.
It means, for example, that maybe -- just maybe -- there's a chance that the MAGA cult could be reached. The recent release of hundreds, maybe thousands, of horrifying emails between Jeffrey Epstein and his cronies, in which Donald Trump's name figures prominently, may finally wake people up to the monstrous reality of who Trump is, and always has been. (Even the few of these messages that have been made public are horrific enough to make my skin crawl.)
The FRS study has always seemed to me to promote despondency; why argue against people when all it's going to do is make them more certain they're right? But I had no reason to question their results.
Until now.
I'm sure there'll be more papers written on this topic, so I'll have to wait till the dust settles to find out what the final word is. But until then -- keep arguing for what is right, what is decent and honest, and what is supported by the evidence. Maybe it's not as futile as we'd been told.
