Belief: Nature and Grounds | Psychology

After reading this article you will learn about Belief:- 1. Nature of Belief 2. Grounds of Belief.

Nature of Belief:

The fundamental aspect of belief is its claim to be true of reality. Belief is the sense of reality. Belief is not a mere assertion of something as true. In whatever manner, it is established, it has a tendency to persist in the mind, and resists every attempt to change it.

It is a feeling of subjective certainty controlled by objective conditions. It arises from perception, memory or thought and involves an element of conation or self-adjustment.

Belief is opposed to doubt. Doubt is the absence of belief. The mind oscillates between two or more alternative ideas in doubt. It is a painful state of suspense. It is removed by belief which gives a feeling to relief. Belief is not opposed to disbelief. Disbelief is not mere absence of belief. It is positive belief in the contrary. Disbelief in God is belief in the non-existence of God.

Some psychologists hold that belief is intellectual in nature. Belief consists in the apprehension of reality. It accompanies perception, ideation, judgement and inference. If these mental processes were deprived of the accompanying belief, they would lose their hold on reality.

This view is wrong. Belief accompanies intellection, but it is not identical with it. Moreover, belief does not always accompany all intellectual comprehension. Imagination may be free from belief. You imagine that you can kill a lion by the blow of your fist; but you do not believe in it.

Hume holds that belief is emotional in nature. “The difference between fiction and belief lies in some feeling which is annexed to the latter and not to the former, and must arise from the particular situation in which the mind is placed at any particular juncture. Belief is something felt by the mind” (Hume). Belief undoubtedly contains an element of feeling. It contains a feeling of compulsion or constraint.

We are constrained to believe what we believe by subjective and objective conditions beyond our control. It contains also a feeling of relief. A state of uncertainty is painful. Belief removes this painful state and gives relief to the mind, “In its inner nature,” says William James, belief or the sense of reality is a sort of feeling more allied to the emotions than to anything else.

McDougall also regards belief as an emotion. He regards it as a derived emotion which presupposes some development of mind. A dog or young child is incapable of belief. It is an emotion of confidence on the intellectual plane. McDougall regards the emotion which accompanies some explicitly formulated propositions as belief.

But this view is wrong. Feeling is the most prominent element in belief. But it arises from cognitions and gives rise to a conative attitude. It contains the impulse to self-adjustment to circumstances.

Bain holds that belief is volitional in nature. Belief is incipient tendency to action. “The mental state termed belief, while involving the intellect and the feelings, is in its essential import, related to activity or the will.”

“The relation of belief to activity is expressed by saying that what we believe we act on “(Bain). This view also is wrong. Belief naturally translates itself into action. It involves an element of conation or self-adjustment. But this readiness to act is a result of belief.

It is not belief itself. Belief results in activity. It contains cognitive, affective and conative elements. Feeling is the most conspicuous element in it. Dewey says, “Belief is perhaps emotional in nature while its test is volition, but its content is always fixed by knowledge”.

Thus relief is a sense of reality. It arises from and accompanies knowledge e.g., perception, memory, imagination, judgement, or reasoning. It is incipient tendency to action.

Grounds of Belief:

The conditions of belief are partly cognitive, partly emotional, and partly conative.

(I) Intellectual Conditions:

(i) Perception, external, or internal is a source of belief. We sec a tree and believe in its reality. We touch it and it resists our activity. This convinces us of its reality. All kinds of external perception produce belief. But tactual perception is most convincing. The surest proof of the reality of an object is the resistance offered by it to our bodily efforts.

If we touch an object which offers resistance to our bodily efforts, we believe in its reality. Introspection or internal perception is a source of belief. We introspect our own mental processes (e.g., joy, sorrow, etc.) and believe in their reality. Percep­tion is directed to the outer world, while introspection is directed to the mind’s own processes.

(ii) Memory is a source of belief. A witness who gives evidence in a court of justice recalls his past experience, and believes in what he remembers. An examinee remembers the answers to questions rightly and believes them to be real.

(iii) Imagination is a source of belief. Rational imagination or imagination under the control of reason produces a belief in its constructions. A scientist constructs a theory to explain certain phenomena and believes in its reality. In fact, here reason is the source of belief.

But even free imagination which is not controlled by our volition creates belief in its images. Vivid imagination sus­tained by strong emotions produces belief. Children strongly believe in ghosts and hobgoblins about which they hear and read. Thus imagination not subject to the control of volition or reason produces belief.

(iv) Reasoning is a source of belief. Reasoning consists in combining certain beliefs or judgements already known to be true and passing from them to a new belief or judgement warranted by them jointly. Thus reasoning produces new beliefs.

You perceive a volume of smoke rising from a mountain, and infer the existence of a fire from it on the strength of your knowledge of invariable concomitance of smoke with a fire. This inference produces a belief in your mind in the existence of a file in the mountain.

(v) Testimony of a reliable person produces a belief in the validity in his statement. The testimony of Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Lord Krishna, etc., produces a belief in the existence of God. Testimony or authority is a source of belief.

Communication of an authoritative book or person produces beliefs. We read history, geography, etc., and believe in their statements without personal verification because we are willing to accept their trustworthiness. Many of our beliefs are derived from authority or testimony.

(vi) Intuition is a source of belief. We have an instinctive belief in the or intuition ideas of causality and uniformity of nature, which cannot be known by per­ception and inference.

(vii) Suggestion is a source of belief. The instruction of a saint to his follower for his spiritual enlightenment produces a belief in its efficacy in the latter. Thus suggestion pro­duces belief. Suggestion is uncritical acceptance of the opinion of another person in whom a person has faith.

Belief is induced in a person by another by a kind of psychological influence indepen­dently of logical grounds. Advertisements, propagandas and the like are suggestions which induce beliefs in the people. Suggestibility is the tendency of the mind to accept others’ opinions without reasoning.

(viii) Autosuggestion also is a source of belief. Suggest to your mind many times in the day continuously for months ‘I am getting better and better every day’. This autosuggestion will produce a belief in your mind that you are actually improving in your health. When the mind is highly suggestible, it readily accepts any idea suggested to it by a person in whom the ‘subject’ has implicit faith.

(ix) Tradition also is a source of belief. We get our religious beliefs and ideals of social behaviour from the mass of common beliefs handed down from generation to generation. We imbibe them from the social environment. They are the raw material of our morality and religion.

(II) Emotional Conditions:

(i) Strong emotions and passions are sources of beliefs. Fear produces a belief in ghosts in timid persons. Fear in people in general produces a belief in dictators. Pride produces a belief in one’s own superiority over others. Love produces a belief in imaginary virtues in the beloved person.

Hatred produces a belief in imaginary vices in the hated person. Humanity produces a belief in one’s inferiority to others. Thus emotion generate beliefs.

(ii) Temperament is a source of belief. A cheerful and sanguine temperament creates a belief in the bright aspect of things. A despondent temperament creates a belief in the gloomy aspect of things. Thus temperaments produce beliefs.

(III) Conative Conditions:

(i) Instinct is a source of belief. We have a instinctive tendency to believe in the external world, superhuman agency (e.g., God), future life, etc. Some unaccountable beliefs are supposed to be innate and instinctive.

(ii) Strong desire or active impulse is a source of belief. The mother has a strong desire to cure her sick child; so she readily believes in the advice of a quack. Strong desire to achieve success produces a belief in success. Wish is father to the thought.

William James holds that the will to believe is the cause of belief. We will-to-believe in God and immortality of the soul, and so believe in them will-to-belief generates a belief.

(iii) Activity is a source of belief. Belief is condition of activity. It gives rise to action. But action also generates belief. Stout observes: “Just because belief is a condition of activity, activity must be a condition of belief. To strive after an end is to strive after the means necessary for its attainment”.

Hence in striving after an end, we believe in the practicableness of the end and the means. Beliefs which are imprac­ticable are not entertained. We entertain such beliefs as are reducible to action. Thus activity is a condition of belief. The acts of worship and prayer presuppose belief in God, and strengthen the belief.