785. Zygmunt, Joseph F. "Prophetic Failure and Chiliastic Identity: The Case of Jehovah's Witnesses." American Journal of Sociology 75, 1970: 926-48.
Describes the Jehovah's Witnesses' retrenching of their prophecies following failures. Their primary tactic was to revise and eventually abandon date-setting but they also indulged in revivionism of any doctrine that failed to suit their momentary purposes.
786. ———. "Movements and Motives: Some Unresolved Issues in the Psychology of Social Movements." Human Relations 25, November 1972a: 449-67.
A review and critique of psychological explanations of conversion. Zygmunt acknowledges that some motivational studies can be illuminating but in general they are seriously flawed. To begin with, they almost invariably concern themselves with questions of why people join movements. This narrow perspective leads these theorists to disregard important aspects of the process of conversion, which is better viewed as a career instead of a more or less instantaneous change in orientation. In doing so these theorists look for a match between some supposed psychological lack on the part of the recruit which the movement, in their view, offers to make up for. This can be seen as a sort of emotional supply and demand logic. This having been "established," the analysis ends. In this logic, recruits have "predispositions" to join, not particular movements, but any movement [in another working out of the reductionist "dormative principle" inhabiting morphine]. Some theorists, while accepting this diffuse view, yet argue that one must look for channeling factors that steer the predisposition toward a particular movement.
These writers generally ignore the characteristics of movements themselves: their contexts, which usually are periods of social disruption accompanied by "psychological disturbance" (p. 453). The interactive social properties of movements must be considered and cannot be reduced to the level of individual events. The structure of movements needs to be taken into account along with their symbols and the meanings they generate. The fact that movements negotiate [not "seek" (p. 454)] change is often overlooked. And finally changes in the nature and structure of movements must be attended to. Failure to investigate these elements leaves motivational studies at best "barely adequate" (p. 454).
Analysis of these movements must use theories of alienation, attraction, conversion and membership management. Alienation will probably be an important motivating factor in any recruit.
[This is open to question; it will probably be found in anyone who actively commits himself to being a "deployable agent" of a movement, since the commitment process almost necessarily entails rejection of previous relationships, and this will always be easiest where those relationships are tenuous, but it is still possible to at least envision radical conversions like that of St. Paul, who went from being a rabid anti-Christian activist to the role of chief promoter of the movement. (However this is not so much a conversion as a shift in attitude; Paul was still a zealous activist.) Recruits, however, are in a quite different situation, as Zygmunt makes clear. The recruit's commitment is far from complete, and it is entirely possible for such a person to flirt with a movement, to investigate its claims and activities with no intention of making an actual commitment, for any number of reasons. Alienation is not, I suggest, a necessary precondition.]
The appeal of movements is often inferred from their ideologies, not empirically verified by taking recruits' own appraisals of their experience into account. Supporting data are seldom introduced, and when they are they illustrate rather than test the analyst's psychological assumptions. What's worse, these cases are often taken, not from recruits but from fully indoctrinated members or even apostates. Otherwise data is drawn from the social groups among which the movement is most successful in recruiting, and these social stratum data are translated into psychological characteristics which then are equated with predispositions. These profiles are then matched up with the movement in question for goodness of fit. In this process the ideology of the movement is also treated reductively, and its platform is frequently analyzed for its latent content in psychoanalytic terms, overlooking the manifest level entirely. In this way the movement's overt goals can be discredited as shams.
Ideological conviction is rarely taken seriously as a motive for participation. This point, if taken into account, might go far to account for the differential appeal of different movements. Do they respond to actual needs in a plausible fashion? The social character of the movement also needs consideration: what else besides ideology does it offer? What's more, it is also possible to be attracted to a movement not because its aims match with one's own felt deficiencies but because they fail to. The movement might offer an opportunity to acquire a new set of characteristics. One can join because of a change in mind.
This latter phenomenon is or approaches true conversion as opposed to simple attraction, and is inherently part of the resocialization that goes into making a full member of a raw recruit.
787. ———. "When Prophecies Fail: A Theoretical Perspective on the Comparative Evidence." American Behavioral Scientist 16, 1972b: 245-68.
Prophecy commonly has elements of ambiguity and non-susceptibility to disconfirmation, but it is important to recognize a distinction between disconfirmation and nonconfirmation. Empirical evidence is not the only criterion. It is necessary to investigate other sources of support for belief. "Failure" of prophecy is crucial only in crowd-like movements; in organized ones it is less problematic. Varieties of action patterns are also important; possibilities are expressive, agitational, preparatory and interventional. Adaptive responses acknowledge error and recycle the organization for another try. The belief system remains intact, internal errors (of interpretation, e.g.) are avowed, and the process is projected into a later future. Blame and organizational redirection is another possibility: blame is placed on outside forces and internal purges may follow. One may also deny failure and reinterpret reality to suit the prophecy. In sum, failure may lead either to dissolution or institutionalization of the group.
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