Cognitive Dissonance and Crazy UFO Cults

So cognitive dissonance, eh? It's one of the most well-studied theories of psychology that pretty much says that when experiences don't match up with expectations, the human mind does some hasty rationalising and makes excuses for itself to try to improve your horribly crushed self esteem.

See, it's like a political cartoon! That's the joke. And long story short, today I learnt that I don't know how to draw anvils. You can all leave now.

Or you can stay! And I will tell you that when one certain Leon Festinger heard about one certain Dorothy's Martin's crazy UFO cult, he decided to write a study about it! This is because the crazy UFO cult (henceforth referred to as "the crazy UFO cult") believed that on the 21st of December, in the Year of Our Lord 1954, the world would end in a giant wet Cataclysm and everyone would die except for them, because their buddies the aliens would rock up at midnight and save them.

The crazy UFO cult knew that this was true because Dorothy Martin had been told so by the aliens from 'Clarion' who wrote stuff using her body as their pen. That is to say, because she wrote it down. And I'm pretty sure Clarion is in Illinois. Or Utah.

EDIT: As it turns out, it's in Illinois AND Utah! And Iowa, and Pennsylvania, and any other number of places that have placed called 'Clarion'.

Well, the crazy UFO cult was in Chicago, which is in Illinois, too, so the aliens weren't really that far away. Maybe Dot was just expecting some light rain in Chicago and thought her sister-in-law from Clarion could come pick her up, and the whole thing spiralled out of control?

Or, more likely, the crazy UFO cult was just crazy.

Anyway, Leon was all like, woah, dudes, check it out, this crazy UFO cult is crazy and also wrong, let's infiltrate it to see how badly they break down due to cognitive dissonance when they realise just how wrong they are!

So, in the interests of ethical science and totally not producing many lulz-worthy Facebook statuses for their friends, they did just that. Apparently it was quite difficult to convince the crazy UFO cult that the sadistic cognitive psychologists were genuine and not just trying to goof them, which makes sense, considering that most of the members of the crazy UFO cult were crazy and had forsaken their entire lives (given up all their worldly possessions, left jobs, uni, husbands, goldfish, wives, etc.) so that Dot's sister-in-law from Clarion could pick them up. Which precisely why Leon wanted to study (and not laugh at and publicise) their reaction to being so, so, SO wrong.

So finally, the big night arrived! All the crazy UFO cult cultists gathered on their crazy UFO cult hill ready and eager to be abducted as soon as midnight arrived.

And then midnight arrived!

And nothing happened.

So the very first rationalisation was: our watches are fast! It is only 1954 and our televisions still use cathode rays. We will wait a bit longer until midnight!

And nothing happened.

At about four o'clock in the morning, when it became clear that the crazy UFO cult could have just bloody well walked to Clarion by now, Dotty K began to cry bitter tears of being forsaken by her alien pals. Fortunately, as soon as she was done, she received another telepathic SMS from them saying that the crazy UFO cult had done SUCH a great job believing in them, that Alien-God had decided not to Cataclysm after all, jolly good, pat on the back, so go spread word about how nice I am, and that if people ever stop believing in me then they will burn in fire and also brimstone.

So at this point, reasons Leon, the crazy UFO cult cultists' cognitive dissonance is leading the reasoning in their head to go a little something like this:

Oh balderdash,

The world didn't end

And everyone thinks I'm crazy.

I'm feeling more than a little sheepish right now,

Let me tell you!

IT IS TIME TO MAKE EVERYONE THINK THE SAME THING I DO SO THEN MY CRAZINESS ISN'T CRAZY,

IT IS INSTEAD JUSTIFIED BY AN IMPARTIAL MAJORITY.

I'm going to avoid drawing any parallels between the crazy UFO cult and any classical theological positions, but I will just say that I definitely respect the beliefs of anyone who has beliefs, even if they are in a crazy UFO cult or think that psychology is an actual science.

Bam!

Other interesting things I learnt today:

• We have had six successful lunar landings, all within the Apollo program
• The first self-righting lifeboat was invented in 1851
• One can never unsee the sight of one's mother doing Zumba