CONCEPT
Social Embeddedness
Festinger's finding that social entanglement protects belief against disconfirmation — the socially isolated revise more easily than the socially embedded, because revision carries a social penalty beyond the individual psychological cost.
Social embeddedness names the variable Festinger identified as the key moderator of belief intensification following disconfirmation. Cult members who were isolated, who had not made public commitments, who had not drawn others into the belief system, were more likely to revise their positions after the prophecy failed. Members who were deeply embedded — who had made commitments visible to others, who had recruited friends and family, who occupied nodes in dense networks of shared belief — were the ones who intensified. Embeddedness raises the cost of revision by adding social penalty to psychological cost: appearing inconsistent to those who relied on one's judgment, acknowledging that the people who trusted one was unreliable, explaining why one changed what one had declared with confidence.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The isolated person who revises faces only her own discomfort. The socially embedded person who revises faces the additional prospect of appearing inconsistent, losing credibility with people who adopted her position on her