When Prophecy Fails

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When Prophecy Fails

Book cover, 1964 edition.
Author	Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, Stanley Schachter
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Psychology
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Harper-Torchbooks
Publication date	January 1, 1956
Media type	Hardcover
Pages	253
ISBN	0-06-131132-4
OCLC	217969

When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, published in 1956, detailing a study of a small UFO religion in Chicago called the Seekers that believed in an imminent apocalypse. The authors took a particular interest in the members' coping mechanisms after the event did not occur, focusing on the cognitive dissonance between the members' beliefs and actual events, and the psychological consequences of these disconfirmed expectations.