Leon Festinger in the context of "Kurt Lewin"

A doomsday cult is a cult that believes in apocalypticism and millenarianism, including both those that predict disaster and those that attempt to destroy the entire universe. Sociologist John Lofland coined the term in his 1966 study Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith, about a group of members belonging to the Unification Church of the United States. In 1958, Leon Festinger published a study of a group with cataclysmic predictions: When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World.

The phenomenon of continued commitment to the "doomsday cult", even after the prophecy fails, has been attributed to the coping method of dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization. Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group's cause after a failed prophecy, rationalizing with explanations such as a belief that their actions forestalled the disaster or a continued belief in the leader when the date for disaster is postponed. Some researchers believe that the use of the term by the government and the news media can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which actions by authorities reinforces the apocalyptic beliefs of the group, which in turn can inspire further controversial actions. Group leaders have themselves objected to comparisons between one group and another, and parallels have been drawn between the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy and the theory of a deviancy amplification spiral.

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.

Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that individuals drive to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others to reduce uncertainty in these domains and learn how to define the self. Comparing oneself to others socially is a form of measurement and self-assessment to identify where an individual stands according their own set of standards and emotions about themselves.

Following the initial theory, research began to focus on social comparison as a way of self-enhancement, introducing the concepts of downward and upward comparisons and expanding the motivations of social comparisons. Social comparison can be traced back to the pivotal paper by Herbert Hyman, back in 1942. Hyman revealed the assessment of one's own status is dependent on the group with whom one compares oneself. The social comparison theory is the belief that media influence, social status, and other forms of competitiveness can affect our self-esteem and mood. This can affect individuals' outlook on themselves and how they fit in with others.

Disconfirmed expectancy is a psychological term for what is commonly known as a failed prophecy. According to the American social psychologist Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, disconfirmed expectancies create a state of psychological discomfort because the outcome contradicts expectancy. Upon recognizing the falsification of an expected event an individual will experience the competing cognitions, "I believe [X]," and, "I observed [Y]." The individual must either discard the now disconfirmed belief or justify why it has not actually been disconfirmed. As such, disconfirmed expectancy and the factors surrounding the individual's consequent actions have been studied in various settings.