harmed another. Afterward, these children were significantly more
harmful toward another child than were children who had watched a
nonviolent television program (a horserace). The finding that seeing
others perform aggressively led to more aggression on the part of the
young viewers held true for the two age groups tested (five-to-six-year-
olds and eight-to-nine-year-olds) and for both girls and boys.
- An engagingly written report of their complete findings is
presented in Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter’s (1956) book When
Prophecy Fails. - Perhaps because of the quality of ragged desperation with which
they approached their task, the believers were wholly unsuccessful at
enlarging their number. Not a single convert was gained. At that point,
in the face of the twin failures of physical and social proof, the cult
quickly disintegrated. Less than three weeks after the date of the pre-
dicted flood, group members were scattered and maintaining only
sporadic communication with one another. In one final—and ironic—dis-
confirmation of prediction, it was the movement that perished in the
flood.
Ruin has not always been the fate of doomsday groups whose predic-
tions proved unsound, however. When such groups have been able to
build social proof for their beliefs through effective recruitment efforts,
they have grown and prospered. For example, when the Dutch Ana-
baptists saw their prophesied year of destruction, 1533, pass unevent-
fully, they became rabid seekers after converts, pouring unprecedented
amounts of energy into the cause. One extraordinarily eloquent mission-
ary, Jakob van Kampen, is reported to have baptized one hundred
persons in a single day. So powerful was the snowballing social evidence
in support of the Anabaptist position that it rapidly overwhelmed the
disconfirming physical evidence and turned two thirds of the population
of Holland’s great cities into adherents. - From Rosenthal’s Thirty-eight Witnesses, 1964.
- This quote comes from Latané and Darley’s award-winning book
(1968), where they introduced the concept of pluralistic ignorance.
The potentially tragic consequences of the pluralistic ignorance phe-
nomenon are starkly illustrated in a UPI news release from Chicago:
A university coed was beaten and strangled in daylight hours near
one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city, police said
Saturday.
The nude body of Lee Alexis Wilson, 23, was found Friday in
dense shrubbery alongside the wall of the Art Institute by a 12-
year-old boy playing in the bushes.216 / Influence