In 1956 Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter released what was to become a famous book in social psychology. The book was titled ‘When Prophecy Fails’ and it analysed a group of UFO cult who believed the end of the world was imminent. The psychologists analysed the defence mechanisms and coping strategies of the cult members after their beliefs were disproved when the world did not end.
The study was attempted to understand the psychological concept known as ‘cognitive dissonance’. Festinger had previously stated that because human beings strive for psychological consistency, dissonance is an uncomfortable state of mind to to be in, so humans can often reinforce previous beliefs more strongly when their beliefs are disproved.
This is exactly what happened in ‘when prophecy fails’. The members of the cult created new explanations for why the world didn’t end and became even more entrenched in their beliefs about UFO’s. They even began to believe that THEY had saved the earth.
Can you see the link to prominent Brexiteers here? When we consider that figures such as Nigel Farage, Daniel Hannan and Jacob Rees-Mogg have spent all of their political careers suggesting it would be beneficial for Britain to leave the EU, we can only imagine how entrenched their belief is that leaving the EU is a good thing for Britain, in fact their sense of self is probably wrapped up in this political view.
We currently have an avalanche of information which is clearly contradicting the views that Brexiteers hold. It is becoming more and more clear that there is no answer to the Ireland border question, financial experts are predicting recession, roads in Kent are currently be prepared for chaos and reports have shown that a no deal Brexit will affect the NHS in disastrous ways such as short supplies of medicine and staff. Yet it should be no surprise to us that the aforementioned brexiteers have doubled down on their beliefs and began to create new stories to explain the current situation, blaming everyone from remainers, the EU, Theresa May and Gary Linekar! As Festinger and colleagues show there is no way that they could ever admit that their deeply held beliefs could be wrong, so rather than accept this and have what psychotherapists would call a ‘crisis of self’ they create new stories which are more self-assertive and allow them to lose the horrible feeling of dissonance that they MUST have with all the evidence!
Festinger suggested that there are five conditions that must be present in order for a person to become a stronger believer after their beliefs have been disconfirmed. I will look at these five conditions through the lense of Brexit and its prominent supporters.
1. A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he or she behaves.
This one is quite obvious, as mentioned earlier most of these prominent brexiteers have spent their entire political career arguing against the EU and suggesting if Britain left it would be prosperous and stronger. Daniel Hannan for example created the European Research Group (ERG) all the way back in 1992. That’s 26 years of being a Brexiteer. It is so ingrained in his sense of the self that it cannot be undermined by current facts and events.
2. The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo. In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual’s commitment to the belief.
The important action that is difficult to undo for the Brexiteers is the assertive and constant campaigning they have done over the past few years. They told the public it would be great, successful and most crucially easy. However it is proving not to be easy at all, which means the Brexiteers have to take to new stories about why it is not going as they expected. Take for example Nigel Farage’s insistence on blaming everyone but himself, he has blamed the EU, remainers, the civil service and the conservative government, rather than acknowledge that his belief has been contradicted.
3. The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.
This one is not so clear cut. There would no doubt be people reading this who would argue that Brexit is going fine and it will be great once we leave. But it has to be admitted that Brexit is going badly, it’s not the great independence promised by Farage and co. They must look at the facts and understand that their belief in Brexit is being disproved. We are not going to get anything that they believed and promised. Maybe when we finally leave the penny may finally drop, but it must be dropping, at least to the Brexiteers who acknowledge reality.
4. Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.
Again, this depends on how in tune with reality the person in question is, but surely there must be some part in the mind of the Brexiteers that understands the facts of the situation. Once this is recognised and understood, then the dissonance kicks in and they deny reality.
5. The individual believer must have social support. It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence that has been specified. If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, the belief may be maintained and the believers may attempt to proselytize or persuade non- members that the belief is correct.
There is so much social support around the Brexiteers. They create a bubble around themselves and use different techniques to withstand the disconfirming evidence, such as calling all the facts ‘fake news’ and ‘project fear’. The belief that Brexit is still a good idea is so strong within their circles, and it won’t be going away soon!
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