Belief Formation Research Articles

The impact of incidental anxiety on the neural signature of mentalizing

Abstract While the effects of anxiety on various cognitive processes, including memory, attention, and learning, have been relatively well documented, the neurobiological effects of anxiety on social cognitive processes remain largely unknown. We address this gap using threat-of-shock to induce incidental anxiety while participants performed two false-belief tasks, a standard and an economic-games version. During belief formation and belief inferences, regions in a canonical social cognition network showed activation reflecting mentalizing, including the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), precuneus, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). At the same time, we found threat-related suppression of social cognition regions during belief inferences. A conjunction analysis confirmed that a network of regions was simultaneously engaged during mentalizing and suppressed by anxiety: bilateral TPJ, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and putamen. We examined how threat impacted the connectivity between these seed regions and its targets. During belief formation, we found that threat suppressed the connectivity between the precuneus and two key mentalizing nodes, the dmPFC and right TPJ. Moreover, during belief inferences, threat specifically suppressed belief-based connectivity between putamen and its targets in intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and dlPFC. Dispositional distress significantly modulated threat-related suppression of connectivity between the left TPJ and left IPS. Our results indicate that social cognitive processes rely on support from other large-scale networks, such as the reward and attentional systems, and that these network interactions are disrupted under incidental and dispositional anxiety.

The Effect of Brooding About Societal Problems on Conspiracy Beliefs: A Registered Report

This Stage 2 Registered Report concerns the relationship between rumination, a repetitive style of negative thinking, and conspiracy beliefs (Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/y82bs, date of in-principle-acceptance: 23/05/2023). Based on four pilot studies, we tested in a fifth, registered study whether brooding, a particularly dysfunctional form of rumination, contributes to conspiracy beliefs using a repeated-measures within-person experiment (N = 1,638). Mean difference scores (conspiracy beliefs at T2 minus conspiracy beliefs at T1) were significantly greater in the brooding condition than in the control condition. However, we could neither confirm that this effect was larger than the specified smallest effect size of interest of d = 0.20, nor conclude that it was too small to be of interest (i.e., smaller than d = 0.20). We explored how reflection, an analytic form of rumination, impacted conspiracy beliefs. We further discuss implications for theories about the formation of conspiracy beliefs, and efforts aimed at preventing or reducing unfounded conspiracy beliefs. Hopefully, this article sparks a discussion among conspiracy belief researchers about how smallest effect sizes of interest could be determined in a principled way based on real-world outcomes.

The Impact of the Climate on Literature

Nature and its elements have always played a valuable role in the formation of religious beliefs and human art. In myths and literature, special attention has been paid to the elements of nature and their maintenance. Poets who have lived in beautiful and prosperous lands, compared to poets who have lived in plains and deserts, have written beautiful and enduring poems because the beauty of nature and its elements play a valuable role in depicting things. It should be remembered that the preservation of nature and its elements leads to the development and fertility of art and literature. In this article, the impact of climate on literature is analyzed in a descriptive-analytical way. In the same way, the poets and writers of the Dari language and literature have benefited from the elements of nature in different ways in expressing their thoughts. But nature in mystical poetry has a more personal aspect, meaning that mystical poets have used the elements of nature to express their mystical experiences and discoveries. Of course, different poets use nature in different ways. In the poems of the first periods, nature has a global aspect and these poets have continuously described nature and its elements.

Media Salience Shifts and the Public’s Perceptions About Reality: How Fluctuations in News Media Attention Influence the Strength of Citizens’ Sociotropic Beliefs

ABSTRACT This article examines whether shifts in news media attention to societal issues matter for how strong beliefs citizens have about those issues. Based on an issue signal approach, in which media salience is conceptualized as signal strength, the study analyzes whether sociotropic beliefs become more prevalent, extreme, and certain when news media salience rises, and less prevalent, extreme, and certain when media salience drops. Using a four-wave panel survey dataset collected over a two-year period, the empirical analysis links media content analyses of issue salience to panel survey data, comparing four issues with different levels of baseline salience and political controversy: violent crimes, immigration, climate change, and antibiotic resistance. The analysis shows that issue-specific news media exposure and issue-specific use of alternative media offer two different pathways to the formation of beliefs. The hypothesized relationship with news media salience was supported for the two controversial issues with high baseline salience (immigration and violent crimes), but not for climate change and antibiotic resistance. The results indicate that issue attributes matter and that audiences may respond differently to salience shifts depending on the level of controversy of the issue.

Autonomy and aesthetic valuing

AbstractAccounts of aesthetic valuing emphasize two constraints on the formation of aesthetic belief. We must form our own aesthetic beliefs by engaging with aesthetic value first‐hand (the acquaintance principle) and by using our own capacities (the autonomy principle). But why? C. Thi Nguyen's proposal is that aesthetic valuing has an inverted structure. We often care about inquiry and engagement for the sake of having true beliefs, but in aesthetic engagement this is flipped: we care about arriving at good aesthetic beliefs for the sake of the values that arise in the process of doing so. The engagement is the point, so we must use our own capacities in first‐hand encounters. Here I challenge Nguyen's account. I argue that it misconstrues the value of aesthetic belief; it conflicts with restrictions on aesthetic testimony; and it has trouble harnessing engagement‐value for a theory of aesthetic value. A better approach emphasizes the social character of aesthetic valuing. On this view, aesthetic valuing is a social practice structured around the collaborative exercise and improvement of certain special capacities. The autonomy and acquaintance principles tell us to engage these capacities in forming our aesthetic beliefs. Understood aright, and contrary to consensus, these rules are identical.

The ego is no fool: Absence of motivated belief formation in strategic interactions

We investigate whether individuals are more easily fooled by others when they enhance their personal characteristics and abilities. We use an experiment in which participants complete an IQ test and then play a sender–receiver game. The experiment has a 2x2 factorial design. First, we determine the state either by the receiver’s relative performance or by a randomly drawn number. Second, monetary incentives, which are common knowledge, are such that the sender is better off (worse off) when the receiver’s action is about him being of high (low) rank, while the receiver benefits from selecting the action that matches his true rank. We find that receivers are not more likely to believe senders or to move their action further from their prior beliefs when they provide news that carries ego-relevant information about themselves, compared to the cases in which the news carries no ego-relevant information.

Câteva aspecte dominante ale gândirii filosofice la omul contemporan

The work systematizes several essential aspects of contemporary man. It reveals his trinitarian structure: body, soul, and spirit. His temporal trivalence - past, present, and future. The process of psycho-intellectual maturation. His essential dimension is ethical orientation. Its culmination is moral. The formation of belief and character are ethical values. Primarily, man is valued for who he is, not for what he has. He is what he is through communion, not through communication. Moral values define human personality. Through empathy, trust, and emotions, we define the human. Our objective is to stop precariousness, primarily the disorder of values.

Group Identity and Belief Formation: A Decomposition of Political Polarization

Group Identity and Belief Formation: A Decomposition of Political Polarization

ОЗНАКИ РОСІЙСЬКОЇ ДЕЗІНФОРМАЦІЇ, СТВОРЕНОЇ ШІ В ІНТЕРНЕТ-ЗМІ, СОЦІАЛЬНИХ МЕРЕЖАХ

Nowadays, Internet mass media and social networks are a battlefield in the information war as a component of the armed battle for democratic convictions and consciousness of Ukrainians. Counterfeiting Russian disinformation created by AI in the Internet media is an important topical problem of journalism researchers and an applied problem of all Internet users for the formation of stable democratic beliefs, resistance to hostile manipulations of Russian propagandists. The importance of knowledge about the signs of Russian disinformation in the Internet media for every citizen of Ukraine and citizens of democratic states is due not only to the role of disinformation in the information war, which precedes and accompanies the armed war, has a long-term disturbing effect on the consciousness and psyche of people in order to deform the pro-Ukrainian mental horizon, destroy democratic values, planting a pro-Russian mental look, justifying Russia's war against the independent Ukrainian state. The purpose of the study is to teach Internet media users to identify the signs of Russian disinformation and to warn them against its harmful effects on the mind, emotions, and psyche. Russian disinformation weakens the spirit, will, and resistance, deliberately disorients, destabilizes, disorganizes people, manipulates consciousness, feelings, weakens a person's confidence in himself, the victory of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, hides miscalculations and mistakes of the Russians, creates false ideas about events, facts, phenomena in favor of Russia, encourages decisions that are disadvantageous to Ukrainians, independent Ukraine and democratic countries. Russian Internet media and social networks are dangerous for people who do not have the basics of mass media literacy, do not know the signs of Russian disinformation, cannot independently determine the content belonging to Internet media, Russian manipulators. The proposed study shows which signs of disinformation indicate that this is precisely Russian disinformation – a component of Russia's informational and psychological operations on the Internet in order to oppose their anti-Ukrainian influence. The article reveals the visible (external) and invisible (hidden in the context) signs of Russian disinformation in the Internet media, social networks by the forms of its reproduction: text, photo, audio, video.

Aggregate Shocks and the Formation of Preferences and Beliefs

Aggregate Shocks and the Formation of Preferences and Beliefs

Susceptibility to cancer misinformation: Predictors of false belief and false memory formation

AbstractPrevious research has shown that people sometimes come to believe in misinformation presented in the form of fake news, and even form false memories for the fabricated events described. This study aimed to investigate the effects of analytical reasoning, attitudes to complementary and alternative medicine, bullshit receptivity, and previous experience with cancer on the formation of false memory and false belief for cancer related misinformation. Participants (N = 466) were exposed to four fake news stories and four true news stories relating to cancer treatment and services. Male gender, low analytical reasoning, receptivity to bullshit, and endorsement of complementary and alternative medicine were all significant predictors of belief in cancer misinformation, while participants with poor analytical reasoning or higher receptivity to bullshit reported more false memories for fake news stories. These results indicate that reflexive, intuitive thinking styles contribute to susceptibility to cancer misinformation, suggesting a potential target for public health interventions.

Психологические аспекты политической социализации

The article is devoted to the analysis of political socialization within the framework of psychology. Consideration of the psychological aspects of political socialization as fundamental elements of the formation of political beliefs and behavior in society contributes to the understanding of personality transformation in the political sphere. Various psychological schools and directions emphasize the need to study and control both the social factors of the personality’s environment and internal motives, beliefs, and values. It is also important to form relationships with both the immediate environment and the state as a whole.

АННА БОЛЕЙН – РЕФОРМАТОРКА ЧИ ПОЛІТИЧНА ГРАВЧИНЯ?

English society of the first half of the 16th century underwent many changes in political, cultural and, most importantly, in religious life. The reign of Henry VIII was marked by a decline in the popularity of the papacy among ordinary citizens, which led to a crisis and a break with Rome. From the moment Anne Boleyn arrived at the royal palace of Henry VIII in 1522, she began to play a key role in religious change in England. Some sources confirm her active involvement of the king in reading controversial works that would shake his attitude towards the Pope and the Catholic Church. Different researchers trace different motives for her activity, debating whether it was a religious or rather a political move. The purpose of the article is to understand and determine the level of activity of Anne Boleyn in the religious sphere of life, to trace her role and motives in the formation of a new religious belief in England. Accordingly, the following main tasks arise. Firstly, to analyze the source base of Anne’s contemporaries and scientific works, which reveal the research achievements of our time. Secondly, to investigate the dynamics of the development of the reformation movement in England, to determine the reasons and prerequisites for the church reform in order to understand the level of influence of Anne Boleyn in the decision-making by the king.

Aggregate Shocks and the Formation of Preferences and Beliefs

Aggregate Shocks and the Formation of Preferences and Beliefs

Household Belief Formation in Uncertain Times

Household Belief Formation in Uncertain Times

Big Five Personality Traits Predict Academic Self-Efficacy Among Undergraduate College Students

One factor that predicts academic success is Academic Self-Efficacy, the perceived competency to accomplish a school-related task. Big Five Personality traits are innate one’s tendencies to think, feel, and behave. Evidence indicates that specific Big Five Personality traits predict academic success. Hence, the Big Five Personality traits might influence Academic Self-Efficacy as a belief formation resulting in academic success. This study investigated the link between Big Five Personality traits and Academic Self-Efficacy. It employed purposive sampling and involved 201 undergraduate students (18-30 years old) from Manila, Philippines, who responded to the online psychological questionnaire. Results indicated a significant positive association between Academic Self-Efficacy and traits: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness. In contrast, Neuroticism traits indicated a negative relationship. These findings could be used as a basis for utilizing personality profiling in developing perceived academic competency among college students, potentially revolutionizing academic practices.

The role of cognitive biases in conspiracy beliefs: A literature review

AbstractIn recent years, several studies have found that conspiracy believers tend to be more susceptible to cognitive biases (e.g., conjunction fallacy, proportionality bias, agency detection bias, etc.). The aim of this work is to review such literature, systematizing these concepts in a unifying framework of conspiracy mentality as a set of biased cognitive processes, which categorizes cognitive biases in two classes: those that contribute to belief formation and those that contribute to belief updating. Drawing on several empirical results, this paper summarizes the role of cognitive biases in conspiratorial thinking, offering some insights for future research and raising questions about the possible weaknesses of this approach.

A behavioral hybrid New Keynesian model: Quantifying the importance of belief formation frictions

Recent evidence points towards significant belief formation frictions and forecast sluggishness. In this paper, we build a bounded rationality New Keynesian model, estimated to match the degree of forecast sluggishness present in the data. We find that bounded rationality induces enough myopia and intrinsic persistence, diminishing the influence of consumption habits and price indexation. Additionally, the bounded rationality model generates impulse response dynamics to monetary policy shocks that resemble those observed in empirical estimations. This study highlights the significance of bounded rationality in capturing real-world dynamics and provides valuable insights into the role of belief formation frictions in macroeconomic modeling.

The Influence of School Education to the Formation of Patriotic Beliefs Among Young People in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

The article highlights the results of the analysis of a survey conducted among young people aged 16 to 25 years in order to clarify the role of school education in the formation of patriotism. The study is based on four questionnaire questions, the purpose of which is to determine whether respondents consider themselves patriots, to identify preferred forms of patriotism, to assess the influence of school on the formation of patriotic beliefs, as well as school subjects with the greatest potential to influence the formation of patriotism, such as “history”, “social studies”, “literature”, etc. The analysis revealed that the majority of young people in the republic identify themselves as patriots. The article reveals a variety of forms of patriotism among young people and identifies the most popular types such as local or regional, civil, national. And they identified what types of patriotism among the younger generation that need to be developed for education in educational institutions. The importance of school education in the formation of patriotic beliefs is emphasized, and the influence of various school subjects on the formation of patriotism among young people is analyzed, such as “history”, “social studies”, “literature”, “native language”, “fundamentals of life safety” and such a young subject as “conversations about important things”. These results provide valuable information for the development of effective educational strategies aimed at strengthening patriotic values among the younger generation in the region.

СИСТЕМНИЙ ПІДХІД ДО РОЗВИТКУ В УЧНІВ ПАТРІОТИЧНИХ ПЕРЕКОНАНЬ У ХОДІ РЕАЛІЗАЦІЇ ЗАВДАНЬ ОСВІТНЬОГО ПРОЦЕСУ З ФІЗИКИ

The article is devoted to the consideration of the possibilities of implementing a particularly relevant today’s educational task – the formation of patriotic beliefs in students during the study of physics. It is emphasized that the situation in our country has confirmed with specific examples how patriotic beliefs can become an obstacle for internal and external threats to the country’s security, which puts the education of patriotism in the first place among educational tasks. The fallacy of the opinion, according to which the education of a sense of patriotism is the task of teachers of subjects of humanitarian and social cycles, is noted. It has been proven that the content of subjects of the natural cycle also provides significant opportunities for the formation of a patriotic position, and in this context physics is the first among these subjects. It was established that an import ant role is played by the physics textbook, if the modeling of the educatio nal material in it is carried out on the basis of a systematic approach to acquaint students with facts related to the history of the development of physics in Ukraine, the stages of physical research, and the scientific output of outstanding Ukrainian physicists. It is shown that methodological approaches to modeling and structuring of educational material aimed at forming patriotic beliefs in students in physics textbooks by are scientifically based and pedagogically effective. M.I. Shut, M.T. Martynyuk, L.Yu. Blagodarenko, which have a pronounced patriotic orientation.