Understanding Beliefs (and how to change them)
It’s the holiday season which seems to make a lot of people think about beliefs. I’m thinking about this great book on my desk entitled Communication Planning: An Integrated Approach by Sherry Devereaux Ferguson and reading the section on understanding the psychology of audiences (Chapter 7).
Citing social psychologist Milton Rokeach the book outlines five belief types:
- Type A - Worldview beliefs: These beliefs constitute basic truths: physical (”This is a cat”), social reality (”I live in Boston”), and nature of the self (”I am a man”). These beliefs are nearly impossible to change.
- Type B - Personal beliefs: These are ego centered and internally formed. Usually self-evaluations (”I’m intelligent”), they can also be phobias or delusions (”I’m fat”).
- Type C - Authority beliefs: These beliefs are formed because of an outside authority, or in opposition to that authority (”I’ll accept that because the president said it” or “I’ll disbelieve that because the president said it”).
- Type D - Beliefs emanating from authority figures: These beliefs are formed indirectly by the actions of authority figures (People’s distrust of Richard Nixon led them to distrust the office of the President and of government and politics in general).