When festinger fails

Prophecy and the watch tower

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4372000
AutoresMathew N Schmalz (0000-0002-9621-6337, University of Chicago, autor correspondente)
Ano1994
Volume24
Fascículo4
Páginas293-308
Data de publicação1994-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoReligion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1006/reli.1994.1025
OpenAlexW2041283520
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas13

Within its history, the Watch Tower has often set dates for the coming of Christ's millennial reign. The ability of Jehovah's Witnesses to endure the failure of these interpretations of Biblical prophecy reveals the power of the Watch Tower to withstand what would seem to be fatal challenges to its system of belief. In what has become a classic study, the social psychologist Leon Festinger has argued that such disconfirmations of prophecy lead only to deepened conviction and increased proselytism to persuade others that the original belief was correct. Applying Festinger's hypothesis to the prophetic speculation of the Watch Tower, I argue that his model fails to recognize how complex organizations and systems of belief shape responses to disconfirmed prophecy. Indeed, the history of Jehovah's Witnesses demonstrates that organizational structure and ideology constitute crucial variables for any analysis of reaction to prophetic failure. It is the very power of the Watch Tower as a millenarian movement that allows not only the rationalization of disconfirmation but the retrospective denial of the prophecy itself

Conviction · Denial · Ideology · Millenarianism · Physics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Psychoanalysis · Reign · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence