The Child's Conception of the World - Jean Piaget. Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World - Robert Anton Wilson. Introduction to Psychology - James W. Kalat. Perspectives on Cognitive Dissonance - J. W. Brehm. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance - Leon Festinger. When Prophecy Fails. Overview[edit] Festinger and his associates read an interesting item in their local newspaper headlined "Prophecy from planet Clarion call to city: flee that flood. " The prophecy came from Dorothy Martin (1900–1992), a Chicago housewife who experimented with automatic writing.
(In order to protect her privacy, the study gave her the alias of "Marian Keech" and relocated her group to Michigan.) She had previously been involved with L. The group of believers, headed by Keech, had taken strong behavioral steps to indicate their degree of commitment to the belief. After the failure of the prediction, she left Chicago after being threatened with arrest and involuntary commitment. Premise of study[edit] Festinger and his colleagues saw this as a case that would lead to the arousal of dissonance when the prophecy failed. In this case, if Keech could add consonant elements by converting others to the basic premise, then the magnitude of her dissonance following disconfirmation would be reduced.