Manifestations, social impact, and decay of conceptual beliefs: A cultural perspective

Abstract

Introduction: Believing comprises multifaceted processes that integrate information from the outside world through meaning-making processes with personal relevance.

Methods: Qualitative Review of the current literature in social cognitive neuroscience.

Results: Although believing develops rapidly outside an individual's conscious awareness, it results in the formation of beliefs that are stored in memory and play an important role in determining an individual's behavior. Primal beliefs reflect an individual's experience of objects and events, whereas conceptual beliefs are based on narratives that are held in social groups. Conceptual beliefs can be about autobiographical, political, religious, and other aspects of life and may be encouraged by participation in group rituals. We hypothesize that assertions of future gains and rewards that transcend but are inherent in these codices provide incentives to follow the norms and rules of social groups.

Conclusion: The power of conceptual beliefs to provide cultural orientation is likely to fade when circumstances and evidence make it clear that what was asserted no longer applies.

Keywords: beliefs; believing; coding; credition; home; hope; narratives; politics; rituals; semantic; transcendence.

FIGURE 1

Comprehensive model of the role of conceptual beliefs for coding of human behavior. The model is based on the integration of environmental information with personal relevance resulting in representations in the human brain that can be labeled “conceptual beliefs.” The double‐headed arrows signify bottom–up and top–down processing. The model accounts for the storage of conceptual representations in memory and for their modifications by prediction errors via reinforcement learning as well as for modification of the generated behavior by explicit reasoning. Broken line signifies the transition to conscious awareness. Source: Adapted and further developed from Seitz et al. (, 2023b).