Belief Perseverance

Definition

People tend to hold on to their beliefs even when it appears that they shouldn't. Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to one's initial belief even after receiving new information that contradicts or disconfirms the basis of that belief. Everyone has tried to change someone's belief, only to have them stubbornly remain unchanged. For example, you may have had such debates concerning the death penalty, or abortion, or evolution.

In many cases, resistance to challenges to beliefs is logical and defensible. For example, if you've always done well in math classes, getting a “C” on a math test should not lead you to abandon your belief that you are usually good at math. However, in some cases people cling to beliefs that logically should be abandoned, or at least modified. There is overwhelming evidence that smoking increases the likelihood of contracting cancer and that exposure to media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior. Yet, some people strongly deny these scientific truths. Scientists studying belief perseverance have been most interested in cases in which people appear to cling too strongly to prior beliefs.

Types

Three different types of belief perseverance have been extensively studied. One involves self-impressions, beliefs about oneself. Examples include beliefs about your athletic skills, musical talents, ability to get along with others, or even body image. Perhaps you know someone who is extremely thin but who persists in believing that he or she is too fat. Such a mistaken and perseverant belief can lead to serious consequences. Another involves social impressions, beliefs about specific other people. Examples include beliefs about your best friend, mother, or least favorite teacher. The third type involves naïve theories, beliefs about how the world works. Most perseverance research on naïve theories has focused on social theories, beliefs about people and how they think, feel, behave, and interact. Examples include stereotypes about teenagers, Asian Americans, Muslims; beliefs about lawyers, artists, firefighters; even beliefs about the causes of war, poverty, or violence.

Studies

Early belief perseverance studies tested whether people sometimes truly cling to unfounded beliefs more so than is logically defensible. But, it is difficult to specify just how much a given belief “should” change in response to new evidence. One “C” on a math test should not totally overwhelm several years of “A”s in other math classes, but how much change (if any) is warranted?

There is one clear case in which researchers can specify how much belief change should occur. That case is when the basis of a specific belief is totally discredited. For example, assume that Mary tells José that the new student Sam is not very smart. José may even meet and interact with Sam for several days before learning that Mary was actually talking about a different new student. Because José knows that his initial belief about Sam's intelligence was based on totally irrelevant information, José's social impression about Sam should now be totally uninfluenced by Mary's initial statement. This essentially describes the debriefing paradigm, the primary method used to study unwarranted belief perseverance.

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