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Next Decoding Academia Paper: Debunking When Prophecy Fails (Patreon)

Published:
2026-02-10 02:26:25
Imported:
2026-02
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A recent request was for us to share the paper in advance of the next Decoding Academia episode. This one is already recorded, but we are still interested to hear people's thoughts. The article is attached to the post below.

The topic is about a recent paper critiquing a famous case study of Cognitive Dissonance in a cult.

Kelly, Thomas. "Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 62.1 (2026): e70043.

Comments

Stan Law

I was thinking recently. Can an adult who joins a cult be considered cognitively "normal"? Or is joining a cult a sign of cognitive dysfunction

Paul Bowman

Man... Et tu, Festinger? After Zimbardo and Millgram, now this as well? Is there anything left in the standard undergrad social psychology textbooks that isn't now mired in scandal and controversy (at best, exposed as fraudulent at worst). On the plus side, Michael Billig's assessment that cognitive dissonance wasn't all it was cracked up to be, already back in 1982 (in Ideology and Social Psychology), is looking pretty far-sighted from this juncture

Ryan Bruno

Enjoyed reading this. Never read tcd or wpf but after reading this i probably wont lol. I will say though that I am not left doubting whether cognitive dissonance was ever really a thing because it clearly is. My take (which seems like a regularity in my reading of the relevant psych research) is that people will continue to believe anything that they have at least one good reason to. Cults are kind of a bad place to study the robustness of cognitive dissonance bc all cultists have is bad reasons to keep believing.