Editing Cognitive dissonance (section)

===Belief disconfirmation===
{{main|Disconfirmed expectancy}}
The contradiction of a belief, ideal, or system of values causes cognitive dissonance that can be resolved by changing the challenged belief, yet, instead of affecting change, the resultant mental stress restores psychological consonance to the person by misperception, rejection, or refutation of the contradiction, seeking moral support from people who share the contradicted beliefs or acting to persuade other people that the contradiction is unreal.<ref name="Harmon-Jones 2002">{{cite book | vauthors = Harmon-Jones E |chapter=A Cognitive Dissonance Theory Perspective on Persuasion |pages=99–116 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I_ByAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA99 | veditors = Dillard JP, Pfau M |title=The Persuasion Handbook: Developments in Theory and Practice |date=23 July 2002 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-1-4522-6159-1 }}</ref><ref>[[Christian Kracht|Kracht, C.]], & [[David Woodard|Woodard, D.]], [https://www.wehrhahn-verlag.de/public/index.php?ID_Section=3&ID_Product=577 ''Five Years''] ([[Hanover]]: [[:de:Wehrhahn Verlag|Wehrhahn Verlag]], 2011), p. 123.</ref>{{rp|123}}

The early hypothesis of belief contradiction presented in ''[[When Prophecy Fails]]'' (1956) reported that faith deepened among the members of an apocalyptic religious cult, despite the failed prophecy of an alien spacecraft soon to land on Earth to rescue them from earthly corruption. At the determined place and time, the cult assembled; they believed that only they would survive planetary destruction; yet the spaceship did not arrive to Earth. The confounded prophecy caused them acute cognitive-dissonance: Had they been victims of a hoax? Had they vainly donated away their material possessions? To resolve the dissonance between apocalyptic, end-of-the-world religious beliefs and earthly, [[Reality|material reality]], most of the cult restored their psychological consonance by choosing to believe a less mentally-stressful idea to explain the missed landing: that the aliens had given planet Earth a second chance at existence, which, in turn, empowered them to re-direct their religious cult to environmentalism and social advocacy to end human damage to planet Earth. On overcoming the confounded belief by changing to global environmentalism, the cult increased in numbers by [[proselytism]].<ref>Festinger, L., Riecken, H.W., Schachter, S. ''When Prophecy Fails'' (1956). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.{{page needed|date=November 2021}}</ref>

The study of ''The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference'' (2008) reported the belief contradiction that occurred in the [[Chabad]] Orthodox Jewish congregation, who believed that their [[Rebbe]], [[Menachem Mendel Schneerson]], was the [[Messiah in Judaism|Messiah]]. When he died of a stroke in 1994, instead of accepting that their Rebbe was not the Messiah, some of the congregation proved indifferent to that contradictory fact, and continued claiming that [[Chabad messianism#Belief in Schneerson as messiah following his death|Schneerson was the Messiah]] and that he would soon return from the dead.<ref>Berger, David (2008). ''The Rebbe, the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference''. Portland: Litman Library of Jewish Civilization.{{page needed|date=November 2021}}</ref>