Recently, I finished a book. *pause for a round of applause
I have been reading When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (Festinger et al., 1956). It was enthralling – the closest thing to a thriller as I have ever encountered within academia. It was recommended to me by a recent acquaintance whose research interests dovetail with my own. We had been discussing how certain figures and narratives within modern environmentalism parallel religious prophets and prophecies – the latter increasingly to do with world-ending cataclysm.
When Prophecy Fails is a book detailing a study conducted in the early 1950s in America, of a small group who were convinced of the imminent destruction of the world. They gathered around a few charismatic individuals who, over a period of just over 12 months, mashed together: an interest in the occult, Christian religious fervour, reincarnation, and belief in extra-terrestrials & flying saucers. The apocalyptic prophecy tying it all together was that the world (or at least North America) would be subsumed by a great flood on December 21st 1954, and that the chosen few would be ‘taken up’ by spacemen in flying saucers to where a reincarnation of Jesus Christ was residing: another planet called Clarion.
Aside from the pure fascination of such a case, the authors had a specific hypothesis to test: that disconfirmation of such a prophecy (that is, evidence or events which show the prophecy to have been incorrect or false) frequently result not in the disillusionment we might expect, but rather in a deepening of convictions and commitment to the group and its cause. This effect – the increase of conviction and commitment – has been remarked upon in previous cases: the authors describe one such case, that of the Millerite movement in 1840s America, in the first chapter of the book. The historical nature of that case necessarily precludes in-depth, detailed understanding of what went on and which mechanisms (if any) might trigger disillusionment or greater conviction. The group under discussion for the rest of the book represented an unprecedented opportunity to study these processes as they happened, between April 1954 and May 1955.
The story that unfolds is incredible. Reflecting on it here, it seems that those with the most to lose from disconfirmation increasingly embodied the wilful self-indulgence observed during the banking crisis of 2007-2008. The banks and hedge funds were deemed ‘too big to fail.’ The core of the group being studied in When Prophecy Fails were in too deep to recant: there was no going back. Like the Millerites, many members of the core group had made significant life changes which could not be undone: they sold their possessions, allowed their careers to implode, alienated friends and loved ones and exposed their families to the censure of the press and wider community. Any more details of what happened when, inevitably, those being studied were not picked up by spacemen and deposited on Clarion, you’ll have to look up for yourself. I recommend the book – it’s not a hefty, dry academic tome, but is immensely readable and enjoyable. In what follows I want to focus on methodology – or more precisely, research ethics.
All academic research is expected to adhere to strict guidelines pertaining to research ethics. Different cultures may have alternate ideas of what that entails. Here in the UK, any researcher intending to collect data of any kind must first submit their project and their plan for data collection to an ethics review board. This tends to be a board composed of their peers – other academics employed by the university. Papers and reports arising from the research often include the reference code for the ethics agreement, which is publicly available.
Those who asked me about how my current project was going between March & May 2023 would have been treated to a minor exposition on how frustrating it was that we had not yet heard back from the ethics review, or that the review been returned to us with some particularly asinine questions. Those who asked and who are not part of the weird cult that is the academy often expressed surprise that my research would be subject to ethical review at all. The nuts and bolts of my explanation to them generally focused on the fact that our data would necessarily contain names, occupations, opinions and so on – and that we had a duty to preserve the anonymity of our participants, so that they could be confident that their utterances would not be traced back to them. This is especially important when dealing with a topic known to be controversial such as stem cell research or experiences of racism in the workplace.
In the first instance, having your data collection plan passed by the ethics review board ensures you are bound by strict procedures which, in my field, mostly refer to anonymisation and GDPR issues. The researcher takes on the responsibility of protecting the participant and their critical information. A common means of operationalising this responsibility is by referring to participants with a pseudonym or a code (e.g., M40#3 – which might mean the participant was male, in his 40s, and was the third participant recruited to take part in the study). A key pillar of ethical research practice which involves collecting data from humans is the principle of informed consent. The participant is provided with extensive information on the project, its goals, and why they have been approached to participate. They are given an information sheet which details these things and which also explains what might be expected of them if they consent to participate, what might be done with their data, and how their privacy and anonymity will be protected. Once the researcher is satisfied that the participant understands, they will ask the participant to sign a consent form, and both the researcher and the participant keep a copy.
The study described in When Prophecy Fails is fascinating to me precisely because there is no way that such a study could be undertaken today, within the ethical guidelines most researchers and research institutions presently operate. In order to get such intimate access to the inner workings of a small, closed group of people, the researchers hired individuals (mostly psychology graduate students, it seems) to infiltrate the group. The data collection method was one of covert surveillance. Additionally, the speed at which the researchers were able to move, from their first hearing of the group to their first contact with the group (two-three weeks!), would be impossible under the modern ethical research regime. Currently, I would expect to factor in a couple of weeks for drafting the ethics application, and then a month or so for the review and response from the board. Then, another month for any revisions and the subsequent second review.
I do not mean to cast aspersions on the conduct of those researchers who ran the study described in When Prophecy Fails. I have no doubt working within the guidelines of their own institution, and I know that the idea of ‘research ethics’ has evolved a great deal since the book was published. If anything, I am torn: the level of access, the rich observational data, and the compelling nature of the narrative displayed in the study are amazing, and are obviously direct consequences of the covert data collection. The infiltration of the group collapsed the boundary between the observer and the observed: it seems that is the closest a social researcher can get to an unfiltered view of another’s perspective.
On the other hand, I am well aware that I could not, in good conscience, replicate this kind of study. Besides, the level of deception required is beyond me. As I write, I am reminded of the irreparable damage done as a result of the Met Police’s infiltration of environmental activist groups – damage to both individual persons and to the bond of trust between citizens and the state. Similarly, over the last 18 months I have been following a blog called Retraction Watch, which keeps track of intellectual fraud in the academy. The actions of a few unscrupulous individuals undermines our group intellectual endeavour and feeds both the ‘alternative facts’ narrative and increases the levels of public mistrust of expertise.
So… how to round off? By saying that while the study depicted in the pages of When Prophecy Fails is fascinating, I am glad that such methods would be censured today. Oh, and… go read the book!
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