Beliefs and Philosophy
We understand more about beliefs thanks to science. But some people had particular insight, like philosopher David Hume who wrote about beliefs. His ideas resonate nicely with modern psychology.[i]
David Hume’s ideas
In A Treatise of Human Nature, 1740, Hume emphasised the importance of experience in shaping knowledge and belief. To change belief, he argued, we need to understand how Reason, Emotions, Will and Sympathy with other people work to sustain belief. Modern research shows he was onto something: beliefs are crystalized by past experience and encoded in thought, emotion and bodily sensations by repeated experience and by our interactions with others. Let’s consider his ideas on how belief interacts with
Reason
Emotion
Will
Sympathy.
REASON. Hume saw that reason serves emotion and will. Emotions and will supply the what-do-I-want? and reason supplies the how-do-I-get-it? Reason formulates a plan to achieve what emotions and will want by using imagination, memory, knowledge and doubt. He emphasized the importance of evidence to beliefs:
Concerning fact, a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
EMOTION. Hume uses the words “passions” to encompass emotions and will. Here I keep them separate. Emotion and will are need to fulfil any goal. Beliefs, according to Hume (and modern research) are maintained by emotions. A president’s words, for example, are “good” or “bad” depending on your emotions and your reactions at the time. Emotions change belief. Public speakers can persuade you with emotion.[ii] To counter a belief rooted in much emotion, you need to use some reason but much more emotion to keep the brain feeling comfortable; at cognitive ease.[iii]
WILL is choice; it is in your orbito-frontal cortex. It is you the driver-of-your-car; the decision-maker. Hume saw that we are free to choose and act on our choices. This includes changing beliefs. If you want to change a belief then, really, you already don’t believe it; you just don’t know how to get rid of it. Your decision-making will has already made the choice.
Twin brothers were interviewed by a researcher. One was a criminal. He said Well what did you expect? I had a father who was in and out of jail. He was my role model and I followed it. The other ran a centre for juvenile offenders. He said Well what did you expect? I had a father who was in and out of jail. He showed me what not to do. I decided to fight against it.
SYMPATHY. Hume saw that sympathy (his word, we now use “empathy”) for other people was extremely important in sustaining beliefs. Modern research shows he was right. Large chunks of our brain are devoted to empathy, to “feeling with other people”: the anterior cingulate gyrus and anterior insula in particular. We are social creatures; we affect each other.
We naturally seek out people with similar beliefs: people of faith hang out together, anti-vaccinators find each other, and aging punk rockers congregate to reminisce. This partially explains flat-earth believers; they get together and reinforce each others’ beliefs. We’ll even smooth out our beliefs to stay connected. If you’re alone on the other side of the political fence at a party, you may soften your stance to keep the friendly vibes flowing. We all hate conflict and, with time, this spills into our beliefs. Given enough time and exposure, we accept each other as people;[iv] we soften conflicting beliefs.
Can Hume help us change our beliefs?
According to Sarah Paquette, Hume’s insights can help anyone wanting to “revise” or “correct” their harmful beliefs.[v] Hume was an empiricist: we gain knowledge through experience. That’s part of the scientific method. Testing. Here’s my suggestion on how to apply his ideas to change problem beliefs.
Write out your harmful or useless belief and create a realistic, reasoned-out goal belief:
Old belief: I’m a loser.
Goal belief: I can succeed when I plan and put in enough effort.
Choose your goal belief carefully. Make it reasonable and real, not a dream wish. A goal belief like I’m always a winner creates false expectations and your brain will easily refute it; it’s just not true. Now we’ll use Hume’s Reason, Emotion, Will, and Sympathy.
1. REASON, CONSIDER THE EVIDENCE. Write out evidence that supports your goal belief: times in your childhood you put in effort and achieved, times in the last year and last week you put in effort and achieved, even when you planned to show up at work on time and did. Your brain can’t deny the evidence. Reason works but it’s not always enough. You’ll soon agree with Hume that it’s emotions and habit that keep you focussed on losing.
If your goal belief is reasonable, we need to work on your emotions.
2. EMOTION, FEEL YOUR REASONABLE BELIEF. Hume emphasized that feelings are strong motivators. Write out how good it will feel to believe your goal belief. Focus on it. Bring the feeling of achievement to mind: remember how good it felt in the past when you achieved. Imagination arouses emotions. Practice recalling the pleasure you felt as you achieved after effort. Recall these feelings during the day.
Aim to feel your new reasonable belief, don’t believe your old feelings.
3. WILL, DESIRE FOR YOUR REASONABLE GOAL BELIEF. Hume knew the importance and strength of desire. Link desire to your new goal. Desire to achieve something after effort, as you did in the past. Desire the good outcome based on your reasonable belief. Desire your goal belief as you would desire food when you are hungry, water when you are thirsty, and love when you are lonely.
4. SYMPATHY, CHANGE YOUR BELIEF FOR OTHER PEOPLE. Often we will do something to please others rather than for ourselves. Hume figured this and modern research confirms it. Ask close people what they believe: do you think I’m a loser? People who care will say No! Your brain’s anterior cingulate cortex sympathy will listen to this if you let it. Ask them do you think I could achieve more if I planned and put in effort? They’ll say Yes! Get your brain to listen. Write down what they say to use as evidence for your goal belief.
Hang out with people who believe in you. Listen to them. In psychotherapy I build a trusting bond with someone and they begin to see themselves as more worthwhile. That’s thanks to their brain’s anterior cingulate cortex and insula. People then experience more hope in themselves.
We often change for others rather than just for ourselves.
Hume’s insight can help us revise and correct our beliefs. It’s particularly effective for self-opinions.
The science of changing beliefs
We collectively change beliefs in science often: when new evidence comes to light. Hume’s insights are a part of this. Faith-beliefs are harder, but conversions and decisions like I just don’t believe that stuff anymore are often made. Changing opinions can be even harder, particularly harmful self-opinions, so people try affirmations. Evidence shows that “affirmations” can disillusion people.[vi] They may be helpful if you already believe them but harmful if you don’t.[vii] Affirming I’ll be a multi-millionaire may be helpful to rich person with a realistic plan, but it reinforces hopelessness in others when a little voice says rubbish, garbage, bullshit, yeah right.
Your brain wants integrity: you can’t fool yourself. The methods I’ll share in coming posts are scientific and preserve brain integrity. I’ll share them with you as the best we currently have. Using knowledge and doubt is the best belief-change method for beliefs in facts and theories. It’s also useful to change negative self-evaluations and opinions. That’s coming up next post.
Cheers.
[i] Paquette, Sarah. "Belief Revision in the Context of Hume’s Treatise and Contemporary Psychology." International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities 10.2 (2018).
[ii] Asterhan, Christa SC, and Miriam Babichenko. "The social dimension of learning through argumentation: Effects of human presence and discourse style." Journal of Educational Psychology 107.3 (2015): 740.
[iii] Horne, Zachary, et al. "Countering antivaccination attitudes." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.33 (2015): 10321-10324.
[iv] Zajonc, Robert B. "Attitudinal effects of mere exposure." Journal of personality and social psychology 9.2p2 (1968): 1.)
[v] Paquette, Sarah. "Belief Revision in the Context of Hume’s Treatise and Contemporary Psychology." International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities 10.2 (2018).
[vi] Galinsky, Adam D., Jeff Stone, and Joel Cooper. "The reinstatement of dissonance and psychological discomfort following failed affirmations." European Journal of Social Psychology 30.1 (2000): 123-147.
[vii] Wood, Joanne V., W. Q. Elaine Perunovic, and John W. Lee. "Positive self-statements: Power for some, peril for others." Psychological Science 20.7 (2009): 860-866.