Are Beliefs Like Clothes?
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Highlights
- For subjects where there is little social monitoring and strong personal penalties for incorrect beliefs, we expect the functional role of beliefs to dominate. Beliefs about military missions or engineering projects come to mind. But for subjects with high social interest and little personal penalty for mistakes, we expect the social role of beliefs to dominate. Consider beliefs about large elections or beliefs addressing abstract philosophical, religious, or scientific questions.
- Just as it seems that teenage smoking can’t be reduced much without giving teenagers good substitute ways to show their independence and worldliness, the social costs of mistaken beliefs about politics and UFOs probably can’t be reduced much without giving people good substitute ways to show their concern and independence. But it is hard to create substitutes for things before you understand in some detail the functions they now perform.
- Also, the conflict between the individual and social role of beliefs can be muted by the invention of better social institutions, such as political parties or academic journals, to which people can delegate their actions.