The Psychology of Belief Change

Abstract

This panel treats of psychological aspects of belief structure and change. It should help understand how some dimensions of beliefs affect their susceptibility or resistance to change. The focus here should be on both cognitive and affective dimensions of beliefs (such as their integrative complexity, intensity, or ambivalence), as they often combine to block or open paths to belief change. A related question concerns characteristics of belief systems. Of particular interest are conceptual distinctions between various constructs (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, opinions, values, or schemas) and theoretical relationships among these constructs in the individual’s broader mental frame. In that respect, does belief change occur as a relatively independent, discrete and fluid event in the global psychic matrix, or is “constraint” in the more general sense a relevant mechanism? Further issues are how belief change intervenes in the information-processing models, and how it relates to higher-level individual variables.

Title	Details
Ambivalence and belief change in a Bayesian framework	View Paper Details
A new framework and a model for the survey response process. Uniting Converse, Achen, Zaller, and Feldman	View Paper Details