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Abstract
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journal abstract
The significant correlation between belief and desire, and the comparatively low correlations between belief and objective measures, leave little doubt as to the moulding influence of emotional factors. In the earlier writings on the subject of belief much interest is shown in its determinants, but in the survey made of these writings no work was found outside of Balfour's "Foundations of Belief" which is definitely devoted to the problem. Sumner speaks of being "impressed with how small a fraction of our beliefs arise in the first instance through reason, or, having arisen, are maintained by it. An analysis of the individual ratings on the rationality scale reveals pronounced individual differences. In textbooks dealing with composition, oratory, debate, and argumentation, ample attention is given to intellectualistic factors, such as clearness, logic, and understanding, all of which play a part in conviction and persuasion. Alexander Bain finds the first germs of belief in primitive credulity. Belief has a large emotional content. Knowledge and opinion are not distinct but refer to the extremes of a scale or a continuous series. Belief, as a certain mental content, is present throughout the scale of knowledge and opinion, just as temperature on a scale the extremes of which are hot and cold; it is not present with the same strength, however, but with varying admixtures of doubt. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved) |