Conspiracy-theory cults are so common that there’s actually a special branch of psychology to study them. And it turns out these cults are boringly predictable to psychologists … particularly at that moment when their fantasy world comes crashing down in the face of reality. Whether it’s a worldwide cataclysm that failed to materialize, a savior who didn’t appear, aliens who never arrived, or (in this case) a seditious overthrow of the United States government that fizzled out, these cults always follow a simple and predictable pattern. And we’re seeing this predictable pattern today.
The news since President Biden’s election, confirmation, and inauguration has been filled with headlines like these:
- President Biden taking office won’t stop QAnon: Here’s what you should know (c|net)
- QAnon Believers are in disarray after Biden election (CNN)
- QAnon believers seek to adapt their extremist ideology… (Washington Post)
- QAnon followers reel as Biden inaugurated (Reuters)
- … and on and on…
A Google search yields hundreds of stories about how the utter and complete failure of QAnon’s predictions have left followers gasping and grasping for explanations. These people have been living in an echo chamber of unreality for the past four or more years, and convinced each other, with help from money-fueled conservative news as well as the President himself, that Joseph R. Biden was a threat to their way of life, American democracy, and even their very lives.
QAnon’s supporters invested so much in their beliefs that they now can’t conceive of nor accept the fact that they were wrong.
Sadly, the only thing new about QAnon is the sheer scale of the cult. Everything else about it is boringly predictable.
Psychologists, sociologists, and historians have studied cults since practically the beginning of recorded history. But in 1954, the topic was turned into a real science by Professor Leon Festinger and his graduate students.
Festinger’s breakthrough studies came via a Chicago housewife named Dorothy Martin, who predicted a cataclysmic flood that would end the world at 7:00 AM on December 21, 1954, sparing only “true believers” who would be rescued by aliens in a flying saucer at midnight before the flood. This sounds tragically comical today, just another crazy-prophet story in a seemingly endless stream of such stories.
But this one was different: her group had been infiltrated by Professor Festinger and his graduate students, who were formulating a new branch of psychology that would come to be known as “Cognitive Dissonance Theory” (CDT).
Festinger was studying how people manage conflicting beliefs, and he knew that Dorothy Martin’s prophecy would fail. By infiltrating the group before the apocalyptic date, he and his students were able to study the cult’s commitment to their beliefs. And it turned out Dorothy Martin’s followers were very committed indeed: they had already sold their houses, left spouses behind, and given away their money, all based on their faith in Dorothy Martin’s prophecy.
When midnight came and went with no alien flying saucers or aliens, Martin and her followers were forced into what is now known as cognitive dissonance, the result of holding conflicting beliefs. They had high confidence in Martin, but Martin was plainly wrong. It was an awful moment for her disciples.
Through this and other studies, Festinger discovered that people handle conflicting beliefs and actions in three ways, depending on circumstances and on their commitment to the beliefs:
1) Change the belief or behavior;
2) Acquire new information that outweighs the belief; or
3) Reduce the importance of the belief.
In Dorothy Martin’s case, choice one, “change the belief,” would have required her followers to reject her and her prophecy and to admit that she was deluded or an imposter. But this was nearly impossible because they had already invested heavily in their belief in her. They simply had to keep their faith in Martin, as otherwise they would have thrown away jobs, families, and wealth for nothing. Or worse, for a charlatan.
Instead, Martin’s followers used strategies two and three:
2) Acquire new information: Just four hours after the aliens’ flying saucer failed to appear, Dorothy Martin received a new message from God via “automatic writing” informing her that the cataclysm had been called off. This new information overrode the original belief that the world would end.
3) Reduce the importance of the belief: Because God’s message superseded the original prophecy, the importance of Martin’s original prophecy (and failure) was diminished.
Martin informed her gathered followers that, “This little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction.” Problem solved.
Which strategy do you think QAnon followers will use? It turns out they’re already, quite predictably, doing all three. The interesting question is: who is doing what?
1 – Change the belief. Happily, a large number of QAnon believers are escaping the cult and returning to reality. Their attraction to QAnon’s wild (but fascinating) predictions was utterly destroyed when those predictions completely failed to come true. It’s almost a sure bet most of these deserters are recent QAnon converts or those who were never deeply committed to begin with. Losing one’s belief is always easier if your “investment” is low. That is, if you haven’t told all your friends and family, joined online groups, posted on FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter, and so forth, then it’s easy to just walk away. These low-investment “fringe” believers can shrug their shoulders and abandon QAnon conspiracies with little loss of face.
2 – Acquire new information. QAnon’s wild theories went through some convulsive changes as post-election events unfolded. Voter fraud would be revealed; the Electoral College would ignore the popular vote and declare Trump winner; VP Pence would usurp the electors … and finally, when all else failed to materialize, the QAnon cult decided (seriously!) that Biden’s “inauguration” was just a way of rounding up all the Democrats and Supreme Court justices in a single location so that a military coup could conduct mass arrests, send Biden, Harris, Pelosi and the other “traitors” to Guantanamo Bay for military trials and hanging, and reinstall Donald Trump, the true winner of the 2020 election, as President.
3 – Minimize the importance of the belief. This one is more subtle than the first two, because most QAnon believers have not minimized their overall beliefs in any meaningful way. But they have done lots of minimization of specific beliefs … by shifting from one set of theories to another without skipping a beat. A good example of this is the “Democratic coup” theory. As the New York Times explains:
In some ways, QAnon believers are well positioned to help Mr. Trump recast himself as the victim of a Democratic coup. They are experienced and savvy content generators, with an appetite for far-fetched conspiracy theories and delayed gratification. They are also part of a hyperpartisan audience accustomed to questioning official narratives.
In other words, they now believe that Trump won, but the Democrats outmaneuvered him and did their own bloodless coup, which means QAnon was right all along. The die-hard QAnon crowd isn’t abandoning QAnon at all, but rather minimizing the importance of specific predictions and theories, while simultaneously introducing new theories that are compatible with reality (i.e. still crazy, but not in direct conflict with facts).
So once again, the psychology of cults hits the nail on the head: QAnon is just another cult conspiracy, following rather predictably in the shoes of so many that have come before. While bigger, scarier, and more dangerous than any other cult in American history, QAnon has proven itself utterly predictable.
The question is, can psychology or sociology give us any tools to fight this cult? I despair to discover that the answer seems to be no. The only solutions being proposed are technological. And while the technical changes are surely worthwhile (and are not censorship!), they’ll only put off the problem, not solve it.
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