← You Are Not So Smart
You Are Not So Smart
324 - Cognitive Dissonance - Part One (rebroadcast)
00:57:57
In this episode, the story of a doomsday cult who predicted the exact date and circumstances of the end of the world, and what happened when that date passed and the world did not end.
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David McRaney
Middle of the show welcome to the you are not so smart podcast, episode 324. It's September of 1954 and the psychologist Leon Festinger is pondering the mysteries of the human mind at the University of Minnesota. Researching, writing, teaching, you know, professor stuff when some rumors and some local newspaper stories reach him by way of students, colleagues and Minneapolis word of mouth that a doomsday culture is preparing for the end of the world. A mere six hour drive to the east in Chicago, Illinois. This was of particular interest to Leon Festinger because he had previously studied how rumors spread and why some rumors were more popular than others throughout history, and he had since become fascinated with what happens when rumors about future events turn out to be false. He noted that sometimes when people's identities or partisanship or religious beliefs or reputations or sense of self worth would be confirmed or emboldened if certain predictions or assumptions turned out to be true. When such notions turned out not to be true, people tended to come up with reasons why that new information didn't necessarily disconfirm those beliefs or assumptions. Also, Festinger was deeply fascinated with what historically happens when an entire subculture built around an idea experiences an event, or learns about some incontrovertible evidence that proves that idea to be false. For instance, a doomsday cult, one that predicts the exact date and circumstances of the end of the world when that date passes and the circumstances do not occur. Cults like those don't typically say, oh, I guess we were wrong about that, and then disband. Instead, they tend to find a way to keep believing that they were right and then they regroup in some way and often become even stronger. They grow even more fervent. Festinger had pored over the historical record and discovered there were actually a lot of these sorts of doomsday cults all throughout history. Groups who had become more passionate after their all important day of doom turned out to be nonsense. Which brings us back to that news coming out of Chicago. According to The Tribune, a 54 year old woman named Dorothy Martin, often referred to by the paper as a suburban housewife whose address they would just share, they just told people that she lived in the 700 block of Oak Park, Illinois. This person, Dorothy Martin, told reporters that she was receiving messages from aliens and she was receiving those messages via automatic writing. And those messages were urging her fellow earthlings to prepare because the world was about to end. Foreign I'm David McCraney. This is the youe're not so Smart podcast and this episode is about cognitive dissonance. This is part one of a two part series on this topic. We're going to talk about it from several different angles, but this story in particular is about how the term entered our lexicon, where it came from. So let's get back to it. All right. Automatic writing, what is that? Automatic writing is closing your eyes, going into a fugue state and letting your hand write things you supposedly have no control over. You have to wait like everybody else and look down and see what your hand has just written. And Dorothy Martin, who lives in Oak Park, Illinois, who newspapers are interviewing because she thinks the world's about to end, she said that what she wrote came from beings she called the Guardians, and they lived on a planet called Klarion. Through her writing, she learned those beings have been visiting the Earth in what we call flying saucers. And their survey equipment indicated that there would be an earthquake which would lead to a great apocalyptic flood on Earth which would not only destroy Chicago, but all of north and South America, most of the planet. And all of that was going to happen in just a few months on December 21st of 1954. And as she put it in one of those news stories about her quote, there will be much loss of life, practically all of it. It's an actual fact that the world is in a mess. But the Supreme Being is going to clean house by sinking all the land masses as we know them now and raising the land masses from under the sea. End quote. And Festinger, when he read all this, he could barely contain his excitement over the news of Earth's impending doom. Why? Well, for one, he was pretty sure automatic writing was bullshit. And even if it wasn't, he was pretty sure that aliens from the planet Clarion were not in contact with Dorothy Martin of Color Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois. But most of all, he was excited because it seemed like Martin might not be the only person who believed in this prophecy. And this offered a rare and unique opportunity to add to Festinger's latest psychological research. He had just begun work on a new theory, something he was calling cognitive dissonance. And the basic idea here is that human beings are driven by a sort of survival instinct to remain consistent. You notice you've done something you believe is wrong, and then you stop doing that thing or you stop believing it's wrong to do that thing. Or if you believe something is true and you come across some information that disconfirms that belief, you'll either change your belief or challenge the validity of the challenging information. And this doomsday thing that was in the newspaper, this Chicago end of the world prophecy, it offered a great opportunity because it had this exact date to it around the corner, December 21st of that year, which meant that if the world did not end on that date, if the earthquake and the flood did not happen, then Festinger could observe how Dorothy Martin would react. And maybe, if he was lucky, he could observe all the reactions of all the other people who also believed the world was going to end on that day. So Festinger shares the news with his fellow psychologists Henry Rykin and Stanley schachter, and the three hatched a plan. It's early October 1954, and Festinger visits Dorothy Martin, pretending to be a potential acolyte. He asks her if there are other people in her orbit who also believe that the world's going to end, if they believe in her predictions and if they've made any plans in connection with them. And he learns that, yeah, there are, and, yes, they have, and they have a name, the Seekers, and Dorothy Martin is their leader. So Festinger returns to Minneapolis, he regroups, and he puts together a team of scientists and students whose mission will be to infiltrate the cult. They're going to pretend to be true believers who want to join before the Day of Doom. And once inside, they're going to take notes, they're going to record conversations, and most importantly, they're going to observe how everyone reacts when the world does not end. And that's exactly what they did. With ease, they carefully staggered their approaches, meeting with Dorothy Martin and the other Seekers on separate days. And once they were welcomed into the cult, they just began hanging out. They attended meetings, they got to know the followers, and they learned some things. One of the things they learned was that 15 years earlier, while living in New York, Dorothy Martin had attended a lecture on theosophy. That's a mystical religious movement that was popular in the late 1800s that was sort of a blend of all the world's religions. Into one mystical philosophical system. The central idea in theosophy is that all religions come from a single source, A secret brotherhood, wizard like, guru thing known as the masters. And these masters are found all around the world, but primarily they're centered in Tibet. And if you're wondering how all this works, think Dr. Strange in the Illuminati, and you're more than halfway there. So, yeah, Martin was enthralled with all these things. She attended several more lectures, and she began gathering up transcripts of those she had not attended and some of the ones she had. And after all of this, she spent years reading books on the occult and pursuing cosmic knowledge and esoteric manuscripts until she found Scientology. And once she got into Scientology, she underwent a formal dianetics clearing ceremony. And through Scientology, she said, she became convinced she was an ancient alien being who had forgotten her previous incarnations. And. And by the time she made her way to the Chicago area, she had taken that knowledge and used it to make sense of a lot of UFO lectures, a lot of lectures on the idea that there was a government cover up of alien activity. And remember, this is the 1950s. There's a whole lot of interest in flying saucers, a lot of new and exciting ideas around the concept of flying saucers visiting the planet. So throughout all of this, Martin had become more and more active in the spiritual communities around her. Occult, new age, esoteric. And she was developing connections and holding gatherings of her own. Eventually, she starts having regular gatherings at her house for those people in that area who shared her interests. And after a whole lot of this, she begins communicating with the spirit realm all herself. This is how it happens. A year before Festinger entered the cult with his undercover scientists, she woke up in early winter and felt a tingling in her arm that developed into a numbness up to her shoulder. Now she's telling them, this is how it happened. This is her account of it, and she says that without knowing why, she picked up a pencil and a pad near her bed and began writing in an unfamiliar penmanship. Realizing it was not her own, she asked out loud, will you identify yourself? And to her surprise, the writing revealed that it was coming from the spirit of her deceased father. After weeks of communicating with the spirit realm through her deceased father, she began to feel the presence of other entities who wanted to borrow her automatic writing powers. And one of them, the elder brother, communicated from the astral plane. And he and the others from the other realms began to offer both messages of her importance and messages that contained foreboding prophecies. One of her automatic writings. Read. We will teach them that seek and are ready to follow in the light. I will take care of the details. Trust in us. Another read. Be patient and learn, for we are there preparing the work for you as a conitor. That is an earthly liaison duty before I come. That will be soon. And another read. You were directed to tell your experiences of my coming to you, for it prepares the way in their hearts. I will come again to teach each of you. They that have told you that they do not believe shall see us when the time is right. And so on. All of this communication with the spirit realm became a very popular way in that area to spend an afternoon. More and more people began to attend her group gatherings just to watch her go into a trance and write down messages from the beyond. These were informal, they were intimate, they were deeply engaging. And so a community of followers formed around her, and they began to actively recruit new members. And so the seekers were born. Soon she made contact with the Guardians, that's the aliens who live on Clarion. And one of their messages went like, what can you do for us? Well, you can go tell the world that we have at last contacted the earth planet with the waves of ether that have become tactable by the bombs your scientists have been exploding. This works like an accordion. When the condensation leaves the carceus level of the ethereum, or atmosphere levels that support a large light layer of marine life, it causes a barrier to be set up. Now that the bombs have broken that barrier, we can break through. That is what your scientists call a sonic barrier. We have been trying to get through for many of your years with Alcitopes and the Erling Timer, end quote and so on. These alien messages were very popular. And at some point, that brought in a physician who was obsessed with UFOs named Charles Laffed. And when he came in, he brought in his network of other UFO enthusiasts. And thanks to his proselytizing and the resulting media attention, thanks to the fact that his involvement got him fired from Michigan State, where he had been a staff doctor, the seekers grew large enough to consider themselves a non denominational religion, and they started meeting at a local church. Then came the big message, the one prophesying the end of the world, the doomsday that would arrive at about two months. At this point, Dorothy Martin was convinced this group was being watched by government agents of the deep State. So she urged everyone to be careful who they spoke to. And hearing that the world was about to end, many of the followers quit their jobs they sold all their belongings, even their homes. And then they waited for further instructions from the Guardians. Through Dorothy Martin, members began to distance themselves. At this point, they stayed away from skeptics and non believers. They didn't speak to friends and family who had urged them to consider that all this was pretty weird. They formed an echo chamber, choosing only to communicate and associate with fellow true believers, the fellow chosen. And they considered any ideas that challenged Dorothy Martin or her prophecies to be fake news and any organization that printed criticism as being part of a conspiracy to hide the truth from the rest of the world. Festinger's team infiltrated the Seekers right around this time, the time when they were starting to gather themselves together and enter that echo chamber. And this made it possible for them to not only learn about their plans to survive the apocalypse, but also help in their preparations to meet with the flying saucers. Martin's automatic writing said that those flying saucers would arrive at midnight Central standard time on December 21, land in her backyard, pick up all the believers, and fly them all back to the planet Klarion. And so the scientists waited. They joined the cult at their regular meetings, where Dorothy continued to hold court as their leader, guide and prophet. Together, they all awaited the end of the world. What happens when a whole lot of people whose expectations about what's going to happen learn that what's going to happen ain't gonna happen? And how does cognitive dissonance actually work when you get down to it? Like, what's happening in your brain? And why would this happen? Like what? What is the adaptive purpose of all these things? All of that after this break.
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David McRaney
And now we return to our program. To properly prepare for space travel on a flying saucer, you must first remove all the metal from your clothing. That's what Dr. Laffhead said. That's the physician who got fired from Michigan State. And he told the seekers gathered at Dorothy Martin's house two weeks before the big day, you gotta get rid of all your metal. He explained that contact with metal would produce severe burns. And when asked why, he said he had no idea. Dr. Laphead told them, humans are underdeveloped technologically, so we don't need to know everything, not just yet, because we're going to get to know all those things in time. Just know that the order has come to through another message from Dorothy Martin's automatic writing. And that should be enough. Let's get rid of our medal. And it was enough. They turned it into a party. They gathered in a room downstairs in her house and just started ripping things out of their clothes. One man tore out a zipper, another popped all the eyelets out of his shoes. And everyone removed their bras, if they wore bras, and replaced their belts with ropes, if they wore belts. They sang, they laughed. And there was a general atmosphere of jubilance and glee as they prepared for the arrival of the aliens. And then they received a phone call. Remember, the prophecy said the spaceships would arrive at midnight Central standard time on December 21st to collect the chosen ones, and that at dawn, a flood would engulf the earth, cleansing it of all the unworthy. So it came as a surprise when on Friday, December 17, right before noon, Dorothy Martin received a phone call from a man who told her he was one of the aliens who went by the name Captain Video, and that there had been a change of plans. The flying saucers would now arrive at 4 o' clock that day. Dorothy panicked. She told the five other seekers who were in the house at the time to get things together, because this was a serious phone call. And one of them asked, well, are you sure? It seems like this could be a prank phone call. And she said, no, no, no way. This is real. And so they went to work, spreading the word to everyone else as quickly as they could. Why hadn't the aliens Been communicating by phone this whole time? They asked her. And Dorothy told the Seekers they sometimes did, but it was usually coded, so they should really take this message seriously. It's uncoded, directly by phone, and she believed it. So everyone gathered at the house. And when they gathered, they removed all the metal from their clothes, if they hadn't already done so. And they waited. All the Seekers, they came to Dorothy's house and they waited. And the phone began to ring relentlessly, always newspapers and television stations wanting to know what all the panic was about they or seeing there's something afoot at the house. And soon a truck carrying a television crew arrived outside and set up all their cameras. And then the public came. A crowd of people gathered around the house, waiting to see what was about to happen. And as I mentioned before, the newspapers had shared their address. That's how everybody knew where they were, where the UFOs were supposed to land, and when someone somewhere saw all these people showing up, driving up to her house and getting out and gathering, well, the rumors spread, and everybody got together to see what all the commotion was about. And in the middle of all this, dozens of people walked up to the front door and asked if they could join right then, just in case, just in case the aliens really were on their way. And among all these people, dozens and dozens of people, 15 were allowed inside and told, yes, you can join. Just remove all the metal from your clothes. And then nothing happened. The Seekers, one of them, a member of Festinger's team, waited in the kitchen, ecstatic, swaying and giggling, wearing winter coats, running in and out to look up at the sky. And then 4 o' clock came and went. After about 10 minutes, Dorothy Martin removed her coat and returned to the living room and told a few of the Seekers to keep watch. She was going to wait for a message. And by 5:30, everyone had just given up. They gathered around Dorothy Martin to see what was going to happen next. No one said anything. No one did anything. And then, after some time had passed, Martin said she had just then indeed received a new message. No need to write this one out. She just said it. She said that when they were eventually picked up, they would not need to return to Earth. That was the new message. Everyone was like, all right, well, it's kind of okay. And then they had dinner together, and Martin told them to watch the television for possible coded messages. After dinner, they started discussing what must have happened. One person said it was probably because all the strangers that were gathered up near the door, they let some of those People in at the last second. And that is maybe why the aliens didn't come. And everybody thought that was kind of plausible. But they kept arguing about it and discussing it until eventually they settled on a better explanation, a better rationalization, a better justification. And that one was that this had been a training session, a practice run. The Guardians of Planet Klarion wanted well drilled actors so that when the real day came, everything would run smoothly, no mistakes. And this seemed to settle everybody's minds. This must be what happened. The mood improved and people even began talking about how great it was going to be to get to ride on a spaceship. And they stayed up all night talking about this stuff. Excited, passionate, thrilled. They had proved themselves. Then at midnight, Dorothy Martin alerted everyone that she had just received a new message and that the flying saucers were on their way right now. They'd be there within an hour. So once again, everybody scrambles to make sure they aren't wearing any metal. And they go wait in the kitchen, going back and forth to the backyard where it was now snowing, to peer up into the night sky. And after a couple hours of this, they gave up. It's 2am now, and Dorothy Martin, she goes outside and gets into a car. They crank the car, A couple of people join her so that they can turn on the heater and get warm. They turn the heat up full blast and they just wait for another message. And soon she gets out of the car, everybody joins her. She goes back inside and she tells all her followers she has received another message. And this message is that the aliens send their blessings to those who have been patient and those who are disciplined, and all of those people will be rewarded. And then she said they told her when the time came, a man would come lead them to the true pickup spot. Everyone seemed more or less pleased by this. And the next day, Martin told her followers she had received another message. This one she wrote out, and she read it as she wrote it. I have never been tardy, is what she says. I have never kept you waiting. I have never disappointed you in anything. That's the message. And then she reiterated how the day before had been all about proper preparation. Keep that in mind. This is all training. This is practice time. So those practice runs that they had already experienced, they should do a lot of those. And so they began running regular drills to ensure they would be ready. And that's how they spent, spent their time leading up to the day, the big day, the day that she had originally prophesied. And this buzz and excitement filled with Drills and sermons and media attention and gathering crowds and more. Messages from Clarion written and conveyed by Martin. It continued all the way up to the fateful day, December 20, 1954. This is the prophecy. At midnight, as the messages had told her, a spaceman will arrive at the door and guide them to to the location of a spaceship which will be waiting, already landed, already on the ground. And then they will board that spaceship and be taken away. And then at dawn, the world will end. They put on warm clothes. They removed all of their metal. They retrieved the special books they had made from all of Dorothy Martin's automatic writing. And at 11:15pm she received a new message. They were to gather in the living room and sit quietly so as not to alert anyone who might be watching the house. At the last moment, one man realized he had metal issues, so he tossed them aside. Another man realized, oh, I still have the zipper in my pants. And he rips it out with a pair of wire cutters. And then it was midnight. By some clocks, it's 12:04. By others it's 11:58. No talking, no moving. Everyone sat frozen and expressionless. The phone rang. And then it rang again. Nobody answers it. Then it was 12:30, and then 2:00am and then 2:30am and then Dorothy Martin receives a message from the beyond that everyone should take a break for coffee. Around 3am they admitted they probably weren't going to go to space, so they started offering explanations for what they had just experienced. Then, at 4:45am Dorothy Martin asks everyone to join her in the living room, because she has just received news from the beyond and it's from someone very important. She wrote it out, several pages long and read it aloud to the seekers gathered around. And she told them there was one God and He was now in their midst. That according to him, there had never been a force of good and of light as strong as the one in that room, and that its power was right now flooding the entire Earth. God was speaking through her, and he manifested that which he has given Thee to do. In short, she told them that the apocalypse had been canceled thanks to their faith, thanks to all their practice and sacrifice, thanks to the seekers, their light would prevent the world from ending at dawn. And everyone beamed with joy and relief. They were ecstatic and jubilant, and they felt like it all made sense now. They hadn't been wrong at all. In fact, they had been very, very right. They spent the rest of the morning calling newspapers, calling national wire services, all to share the very good news. A Few days later, on the 23rd, Dorothy Martin told her followers that she had received another message from the Guardians. This time, they wanted them to gather on the sidewalk in front of her House that 6pm on Christmas Eve and sing Christmas carols. The aliens would arrive and land a flying saucer on the street. Also, they were to notify the media and invite the public. The aliens told her that the Seekers then notified the media and invited the public. And at 6pm on Christmas Eve, they did do this. They stood on the sidewalk in front of her House while 200 or so strangers, members of the public, watched them sing Christmas carols in front of local television cameras. Then 20 minutes later, they went back inside the house and just sort of hung out. When a newspaper called, Dr. Charles Laffead answered. And he told the reporter that the aliens did indeed arrive just as prophesied. One was in the crowd watching. When the reporter asked, well, why didn't they get picked up by the aliens? He told him, well, that wasn't really part of the new prophecy. And when the reporter said, well, how come? He said, well, that was because they're just. They're just. They just came to come and watch us. Yeah, but why didn't you get picked up anyway? The reporter asked. And he told them, because, most likely it's because they didn't feel welcome in that crowd. After the night of the failed prophecy, Dorothy Martin's announcement that their faith had averted the end of the world momentarily revived the group's sense of purpose. And many of the most devoted members continued to support Martin in her revised interpretations. But week by week, a few people here and there, the group's numbers dwindled, and a year later, the Seekers were no more. By the way, I haven't mentioned Dorothy's husband, Harold, who was not a seeker. He remained a background player in all of this. He usually kept to himself. He didn't get involved. He was an osteopathic physician and he was rarely home. Anyway, it appears he never really bought into the whole thing. He never really participated in it. That is, until Oak park police considered charging Dorothy with inciting a riot and contributing to the delinquency of minors. When Harold agreed to have his wife placed under psychiatric care outside of Illinois, which he didn't actually plan to do, but it was enough. The cops dropped the matter and Dorothy relocated to Peru, where she established a new religious group called the association of Sonata Sanat Kumara. She started calling herself Sister Thaedra after that, and she continued to claim that she received messages from higher beings until her death in 1992. It seems Harold stayed behind in Illinois when she left, I couldn't find any records indicating that he joined Dorothy in Peru. Leon Festinger and his team, which included psychologists Henry Ryken and Stanley Schacter, they would take this enormous amount of material they gathered during the observational field experiment, infiltration, investigation, experience, and turned it into a book published in 1956, titled When Prophecy Fails. The book would go on to become a classic, a landmark title in the history of psychology. The book that launched thousands of studies into belief perseverance and cults and confirmation bias and motivated reasoning and much, much more. But for Festinger, this established the concept of cognitive dissonance. It was referred to throughout the book. There's a section in the book only about that. And this is the term that he coined. It's the very psychological phenomenon he intended to study by observing the reactions of the seekers to total disconfirmation of their beliefs. Thanks to the popularity of this book and the study, he would go to Stanford University where he would publish his next book, the very next year, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. And based off that book, he would go on to conduct all sorts of studies into this phenomenon, which we're going to get into. We're going to cover those, we're going to talk about those in part two, the next episode of this two part series about cognitive dissonance. But before we end part one, we're going to get into, well, what is this? What is cognitive dissonance? Well, cognitive dissonance is the negative emotional state you feel when you notice that one of your attitudes, beliefs or behaviors seems to be inconsistent with another of your attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. You can also feel cognitive dissonance when a new experience or a new bit of information challenges an existing attitude or belief. It's that I might be wrong feeling. And you can also feel cognitive dissonance when one of your actions threatens your sense of self. That is, you think of yourself as being kind or thoughtful or noble in some way, but your behavior suggests otherwise and you notice there's some dissonance. And this is a real physiological reaction. This is something that starts in the brain and is felt throughout the body. The feeling of dissonance is more than just a mental state physiologically. It's activation of the anterior cingulate cortex. And the anterior cingulate cortex is the part of the brain that is crucial in error detection, emotional regulation, cognitive control. Research using brain imaging has shown that the ACC becomes much more active when A person experiences cognitive dissonance. And people with damage to the anterior cingulate cortex, they usually don't detect errors in their thinking and judgment nearly as well as other people do. This region is the one that tells you something is off and requires some resolution. It's the part of the brain that says, I think I might be wrong about this. Also the prefrontal cortex, it's involved in this. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, it's involved in higher order thinking and decision making. When a person's trying to resolve cognitive dissonance, when the resolution phase begins, this is the part of the brain that becomes very active. And there are all sorts of other things, from neurotransmitter responses to dopamine reactions, sympathetic nervous system activation. We have nice research showing that, yeah, this is a bodily, physical response, keyed up, induced starting in the brain. When you notice you might be wrong, there's been a mistake, there's an error, there's been disconfirmation of your assumptions when reality does not match your expectations. And we're going to get into all that in episode two. But here's the thing that I think is often left out. When you feel cognitive dissonance, that's just the beginning. You immediately after feeling that dissonance, become strongly compelled, highly motivated to reduce the dissonance, or, and this is also rarely mentioned, you become motivated to maybe increase the consonance of your cognitions. Yes, there is a counterpart to this called cognitive consonance. And you're going to do either one of these things, reduce the dissonance or increase the consonance until you feel like you've reached an acceptable balance. Typically, when you feel an abundance of dissonance, you will reduce that dissonance in one of four ways. 1. Change. If your belief or attitude or value conflicts with your behaviors, you can change your belief, attitude or value, or you can change your behaviors. Festinger uses the example of smoking all throughout his writing. If you believe it's bad for you and you light up a cigarette anyway, when you feel dissonance, you can either change your beliefs that you think smoke, smoking is now good for you, or you can put out the cigarette.
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Kitted Shop Representative
2.
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David McRaney
Justification and rationalization. When you engage in behavior that doesn't match your beliefs or values, you can come up with a story, a narrative that makes it seem justified or rational to have behaved in that way. For instance, with smoking, you can say, it's just one cigarette, or, I've had a hard day, come on, I've earned it. And so on. Three, you can add consonance. There are usually some existing consonant cognitions counterbalancing any existing cognitive dissonance. And so you can feel a little bit of both and remain balanced. But when dissonance becomes overwhelming, another way to return to balance is to add more consonants. So in the case of smoking, you can promise yourself that you're going to quit tomorrow, or tell yourself this is bonding time with your friends and it's worth it for right now. Or you can say, this is the last pack, I promise. And four, you can ignore, deny, or contradict. When it comes to information that you've just learned or an experience that you've just had, which challenges your beliefs, attitudes, or values. You can admit you were wrong and change what you think, feel, or believe. Or you can ignore, deny, or reinterpret. For instance, let's say you are a smoker back in the 1950s and news just came out about how bad smoke smoking is for your health. You can ignore it, or you can go looking for new information that contradicts this contradiction, or you can just consider that news incorrect, wrong, a lie, or fake news. In all of these cases, once we notice some kind of personal hypocrisy, we will either change ourselves or we will change the story we tell about ourselves. And the path we usually choose is usually determined by the strength of the underlying motivation to keep believing, feeling, or behaving as we already do. And complicating all of this is the fact that we often don't know what is truly motivating our behavior or were unwilling to admit it. Especially in the case of some sort of social primate in group tribalism partisanship situation. You know, those times when the underlying motivation has little to do with the facts of the matter and a whole lot to do with your sense of status, identity or belonging. Festinger believed that status, identity and belonging had a lot to do with the reason doomsday cults continue past the day of doom upon which they are based. And like the doomsday cults before them, he hypothesized that when the day came and went for the seekers, this confirmation of their core beliefs would likely make their convictions stronger, not weaker. And sure enough, that's what happened. At the most basic level. They believed aliens were going to visit and the world was going to end. When that didn't happen, they could accept they were wrong. Or they could say, actually the aliens were going to visit and the world was going to end, but we prevented the end of the world. And so the Aliens didn't need to come. They also believed they were the chosen ones, and because of this, a spaceship would come and save them from the end of the world. Thanks to disbelief, they engaged in a lot of questionable behaviors. Then, when they observed that the spaceship did not come and the world did not end, instead of seeing this as disconfirmation that they were the chosen ones, they saw it as confirmation that they were more chosen than they had ever imagined. And when their beliefs and attitudes about their own selves and their actions came into conflict, the members of the Seekers felt a strong sense of cognitive dissonance. So one option was to reduce that dissonance by updating their beliefs about Dorothy Martin, to admit they had been wrong about her and change their mind about her ability to communicate with the beyond with aliens, to see her as either mentally unwell or as a huckster of some kind. But to change that belief, they would have to also change many other beliefs and attitudes about many other things, including themselves and their own behaviors. About why they had sacrificed so much, why they had endured so much, why they had given up their jobs and reputations and friendships, and why at least one of them had yanked out their zipper with a pair of wire cutters. That's a lot of potential new dissonance, which would require even further dissonance reduction. On the other hand, they could just keep all their beliefs about Martin and automatic writing and alien visitors and never admit they had been wrong about any of it. Justify all those self concept threatening behaviors by believing they had saved the world thanks to their hard work and faith. Dissonance reduced, problems solved. And as a result, a whole new host of new beliefs got added and their existing confidence in all their old beliefs increased. There are so many moving parts, so many examples, so many different ways to explore this, and we're going to get into all of that in episode two of this series. Things like post decision dissonance, like choosing between two job offers and then justifying the decision that you made to make, feel confident in the choice instead of feeling regret about the other choice. Stuff like that, justification of choice, commitment, strengthening political loyalty, the illusion of introspection, the implications from split brain research, confabulation, moral dumbfounding, election, justification, narrative creation, rationalization, and justification itself. The Benjamin Franklin effect, and much, much more. Also, before I go, this is the 300th episode of the podcast. Thank you very, very much for listening. Your support is the only way I could still be making this podcast. I have been the sole writer, producer, editor at everything of Every episode. And whether you listen using a podcast streaming service or you're a Patreon supporter. Thank you. Thank you. And might I add, thank you. The way I started this way back in 2009 was as a blog. And that blog became two books. You are not so smart and you'd are now less dumb. That led to the first episode of the podcast in 2012, with Dan Simons as the first guest. He is the co author of the invisible gorilla along with Christopher Chabri, and together they're the scientists who conducted the famous invisible gorilla experiments. They reappeared on the show on episode 264, which was in July of last year. And I remember how absolutely thrilling and amazing it was to be able to interview the author of that book, one of the scientists behind that mega viral psychology video at the time. And I actually got to hang out with Dan Simons 2 weeks ago in Las Vegas. We were both lecturers at CSICON sicon, the convention put on by Skeptical Enquirer magazine in the center for skeptical inquiry. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was there. Brian Cox, Mellie Tracek, King, Stephen Novella, who's also been a guest. The skeptics guide the universe. It was super fun and super surreal. They're also a lot of youf are not so smart fans there. So this is a hello, a big giant hug to all of y' all who I got to meet. Some of you brought books and I signed those books and all of you told me you'd been listening since back in the cookie days. And we laughed about how. Yeah, for the first 100 episodes, I ate a cookie baked from a recipe sent in by a listener at the end of each show. And some people missed this segment, some people did not. So again, it was super fun and super surreal to get a chance to hang out with all of you longtime listeners. Thank you, thank you, and thank you. Since starting this show, I've written a third book, how minds change. Lectured in person all across the planet, from NASA to the BBC, and over the course of 300 episodes, interviewed a panoply of fascinating people like Annie Duke and Adam Grant and Dan Pink and Hazel Marcus and James Burke and Terry Crews and Megan Phelps Roper and Brian Brushwood and v. S. Ramachandran and Jennifer Shahad and Temple Grandin, and covered a vast array of psychological phenomena, biases, fallacies, heuristics, and many other aspects of the mind, all in the name of exploring unity through humility. And now the credits.
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Kitted Shop Representative
Foreign.
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David McRaney
That is it for this episode of.
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Kitted Shop Representative
The you are not so smart podcast. For links to everything we talked about, head to you are not so smart.com or check out the Show Notes right.
- [57:39]
David McRaney
There in your podcast player.
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Kitted Shop Representative
You can find my book How Minds Change wherever they put books on shelves and ship them in trucks. Details are@david mccraney.com and I'll put links to all sorts of things related to.
- [57:52]
David McRaney
That right there in your podcast player.
- [57:56]
Kitted Shop Representative
For all the past episodes of this podcast, go to Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify or you are not so smart dot com. Follow me on on Twitter and Threads and instagram @david McCreaney. Follow the Showt Smart blog. We're also on Facebook. You are not so Smart. And if you'd like to support this one person operation, go to patreon.com you are not so Smart. Pitching in at any amount gets you the show ad free, but the higher amounts get you posters, T shirts, signed.
- [58:27]
David McRaney
Books and other stuff.
- [58:29]
Kitted Shop Representative
The opening music, that's Clash by Caravan Palace. And if you really want to support this show, just tell somebody about it. Share it somewhere. If there was an episode that really meant something to you, share that episode and check back in about two weeks for a fresh new podcast.
- [58:57]
David McRaney
Foreign.
- [59:12]
Katie Nolan
Hey there, it's Katie Nolan, host of Casuals, the sports podcast where we don't care how much you know about sports, we're just happy that you're here. Every week I hang out with some of my good friends to discuss the big, biggest stories across sports and entertainment, but in a way that's like fun and not boring. Want to know Sue Bird's favorite Diana Taurasi story? Or how heavy the Larry o' Brien trophy is? Or even what baseball team is right for you based on your moon sign we got you. Listen to Casuals every Tuesday and Thursday on the Sirius XM app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [59:41]
David McRaney
Bye.