The ability to reduce cognitive dissonance, to use American sociologist Festinger’s term, is one of the essential characteristics of cults.
Festinger suggests that sectarian groups have the capacity to
“recalibrate” their objectives or their thought when a confrontation with reality shows the thought to be false. When there is "dissonance” between the thought and reality, the group tends to reduce the discordance by experimentally revising its thoughts and analyzing the results.
Cults have a stunning capacity to reduce dissonance. Traversing their recent history, one notes that the followers are not terribly shaken by the non-realization of their frequent prophecies. The failure of the world to come to an end, as frequently predicted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, does not seem to slow down their enthusiasm to convert others.