Most theories of ideological conversion and commitment fail to address directly what attitudes, beliefs, or ideologies are, where they come from, or what functions they serve. The social psychological perspective, on the other hand, leads me to conceive of ideological conversion as one aspect of the extensively researched field of attitude and beliefs, and to look for explanations based upon, or at least compatible with, what has come to be known from that approach. It is also the case that while nearly all instances of ideological conversion take place in the context of groups, most theories have little or nothing to say about the dynamics of those groups most likely to induce conversions, or about how group processes impact conversion and commitment processes. I will attempt in this chapter to summarize some of the most relevant of the group related phenomena that have been studied by social psychologists over the past fifty or so years, and to show how they help to clarify many important issues.

In previous chapters I have presented numerous theories of ideological conversion, and other theories about commitment, including commitment to groups and to ideologies. My goal in the current chapter is to develop a single theoretical framework in the context of which both ideological conversion and commitment to ideologies can be more adequately understood. This effort is informed by the decades of well established research and theory by social psychologists, and by others, and is compatible with what is known of relevant phenomena in real world settings from case studies, autobiographies, journalistic accounts, and other such sources of ideological conversion and commitment.

RELEVANT RESEARCH AND THEORY ON ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS.

The area of attitudes and beliefs has always been the largest part of social psychology, and I will not attempt to do more in this section than to summarize those issues, findings and theories that are most relevant to the current task of developing a social psychological theory of ideological conversion and commitment. Most other theories of conversion and commitment are not based upon, nor do they even refer to, the nearly 100 years of relevant social psychological research on attitudes and beliefs. Nor are they based upon any comparable body of research. I believe that an understanding of ideological conversion and commitment to ideologies must be premised upon an understanding of ideologies, and that ideologies, being subparts of larger attitude-belief systems, must be understood in terms of such systems. Fortunately, much is known about the formation, structure, and change in attitude-belief systems.

The Structure of Attitude-Belief Systems. In one way or another, all major conceptions of attitudes involve three separate but interdependent components. Each attitude held by an individual must be about something, an attitude object, which may be a physical entity, a person or group, an idea, or even a behavior. Whatever the object, one will characteristically have an affective orientation to it, meaning feelings about it; a behavioral orientation toward it, meaning a tendency to approach or avoid it; and a cognitive orientation concerning it, meaning one's beliefs about it and about its relationship to other things. Some theorists have defined attitude as an interdependent set of these three types of orientations to an attitude object. Other theorists, especially those most interested with how attitudes serve as causes of or allow for prediction of behavior, have tended to define attitude as some combination of affective and cognitive orientations, and then to determine when, where, and how attitudes relate to behavior. Still others, especially those involved in issues of measurement, have defined attitude in terms of the affective dimension alone, leaving the relationship of attitudes to both behavior and to cognition or belief, for empirical rather than definitional resolution. However attitude is defined, research clearly demonstrates that affective responses, behavioral responses, and cognitive responses, to attitude objects are highly interdependent. They tend to be consistent, i.e if we like it we will behave positively toward it and believe positive things about it; if we dislike it, we will avoid it and believe negative things about it. Where inconsistencies between these three types of responses occur, they lead to feelings of discomfort and tension. They are aversive, and they tend to precipitate some changes such as reduce the discomfort by restoring consistency. If some of the components are known, and others are not, people tend to infer consistent orientations in those that have been unclearly specified. They do so both in making attributions about others, and in making attributions about themselves.

The Belief System. Given the goal of understanding ideological conversion, the most important of the three types of orientations for such purposes is that of cognition or belief. The set of cognitions held by an individual, to the extent that they are interdependent, is a belief system. One will have many beliefs about many attitude objects. For each individual object, one may have beliefs related to affective responses relevant to that object, e.g. "I believe it makes me feel good," based upon one's past experiences of affective responses which have been remembered and stored as cognition. One will also have beliefs about how one has characteristically behaved toward the object, e.g. "I always buy chocolate ice cream in preference to other types." And one will have believes about the object that are purely cognitive, as those based upon previously acquired information, e.g. "I believe she is a liar." Research on cognitive consistency supports the general notion that these affect-cognitions, behavior-cognitions, and belief-cognitions, when they are about the same object, and where they are inconsistent with each other, produce a state of tension that is usually experienced as unpleasant and that usually facilitates cognitive change such as reduces that inconsistency. Similarly, when multiple objects are involved, various methods for indexing between-object inconsistency all support the view that between object belief inconsistency is also aversive and likewise motivates change in the direction of reducing such inconsistency.

In the theory to be developed, which is essentially a theory about belief systems, affective responses and behavioral responses play essential but secondary roles. Past and current affective and behavioral responses constitute major constraints upon the belief system. One cannot easily believe that one behaved in a way that is the opposite of one's actual behavior. This is especially true if others have seen the behavior, if there are physical manifestations of the behavior, such as a video-tape, or if it has been otherwise embedded in an external objective reality. Likewise, one cannot readily deny that one has felt repulsion or affection for the object, where these experiences have been powerful and direct and have been stored as memories. This is not to say that behaviors are never denied or distorted, or that affective responses are never repressed or reinterpreted at a cognitive level, but only to say that affect and behavior place important constraints upon the belief system. Motivation to overcome such constraints, and the factors that allow or disallow this to be done, are issues with which the theory will have to contend.

A FUNCTIONAL THEORY OF SYSTEMS OF ORIENTATION.

Of the numerous alternative theoretical interpretations of ideological conversion so far considered, most have arisen from attempts to explain relatively limited examples of conversion, as for example, of victims of Chinese brainwashing (Schein, Schneider, and Barker, 1963; Lifton, 1963), or of Moonies (Lofland and Stark, 1965; Barker, 1984). Most theories of conversion come from disciplines other than psychology, (e.g. sociology) or from areas of psychology other than social psychology (e.g. personality or learning). Two of the most frequently quoted theorists, Robert J. Lifton and William Sargant, are psychiatrists. As different as some of these theories seem to be from each other, they have in common the fact that they make no reference to or use of the thousands of studies done by social psychologists in the past 50 years on the formation, structure, and change in systems of attitudes and beliefs. They also universally fail to utilize any of the massive body of research on group dynamics that is relevant to understanding why people have attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies, and to how these might be changed. Finally, they purport to explain why one might change ideologies without having any explanation of why people have ideologies in the first place.

The theory of conversion and commitment to be developed in this chapter is based upon the functional perspective. The system of orientations of interest is the human attitude-belief system, which contains all of the separate affective, behavioral, and cognitive orientations to all of the attitude objects of a given individual, and their relationships to each other. I will henceforth refer to this system simply as the "Belief System." Beliefs are cognitions, and the system of beliefs will contain cognitions about one's affective responses and about one's characteristic behaviors. Behavioral and affective responses and orientations, to the extent that they become known to the cognitive system, become represented in that system. What one is capable of believing about one's behaviors and one's affective responses is constrained by what those have actually been. This is especially the case for behavior related cognitions, which constrain one's cognitive representations of them to the extent that they are public, are irreversible or have irreversible consequences, or are otherwise embedded in an external objective reality. Affective responses, because and to the extent that they are more private and are less embedded in external reality, are more amenable to cognitive distortion or misrepresentation.

The Belief System exists to serve functions. It will be relatively stable as long as those functions are being adequately fulfilled, and sometimes even after it has failed to function adequately. What constitutes "adequate functioning" is an issue to which I will later return, but for now let us assume that in the absence of some threat to adequate functioning the system is likely to remain stable. Ideologies are schemas of interdependent cognitions which also exist because they serve functions, or have done so in the history of the individual. Ideological conversion requires acceptance of a new ideology that is perceived to be incompatible with a prior ideology or with other important beliefs. Such acceptance requires change in the Belief System, and such change is unlikely unless that Belief System has been threatened in a manner that impairs its ability to adequately fulfill its functions. Thus "Threat to Adequate Functioning," of the initial Belief System, is a prerequisite for subsequent ideological conversion. As was demonstrated in the review of theories of ideological conversion in Chapter 4, nearly all such theories contain some such requirement of distress or threat to the initial system as a prerequisite for conversion. The social psychological perspective, combined with a functional orientation, will provide useful guidance in understanding what the sources of such threat are likely to be.

The social psychological theory of ideological conversion to be developed involves a complex of functions, threats to adequate functioning, and responses to those threats. The relationship of these to each other is likely to be more easily understood if I first present a metaphor to illustrate their interdependencies.

The Glass House Metaphor

Imagine that you have a glass house. A glass house, like any other house, presumably exists to serve functions. One might suppose that a glass house serves functions of keeping the heat in, and keeping the rain and the wind out. Let us assume that your glass house does these things adequately.

Suppose now that somebody comes by and throws a rock at your glass house. What will happen? Not very much perhaps. A pane of glass may be broken, and to some extent the functions of the house will no longer be performed as adequately as they were before. The functioning of your house has been threatened by the broken glass because now some of the heat is getting out, and some of the wind and rain are getting in. How do you respond to this threat to the functioning of your glass house? Probably you would try to fix it. You would perhaps run down into your basement, get a pane of glass, a ladder, and some putty, and you would proceed to utilize previously acquired skills and an understanding of how things work to replace the pane of glass, restoring the adequate functioning of your house. The likely result is that it would become very similar to the way it was before the threat had been imposed, before the glass had been broken.

Suppose that this threat recurs. Say, once a week. It may be that once a week you would re-enact this same ritual of getting a pane of glass, a ladder and putty from the basement, and repairing the broken pane. I will refer to this basic process as the use of internal resources for coping with threat. You might do this for years, after which, when we look at your glass house, it may look much the way it did originally. It is also likely to function in the same way. It's basic structural integrity may be largely unaltered though it may be slightly different. Some of the new glass may have a different tint. The way some of it was installed may be a little bit different. The technology of how some of the panes are sealed may be variable. Essentially, however, the house will look much the same and function in much the same way in spite of these minor changes.

Suppose now that somebody starts throwing rocks at your house not once a week, but once a day. It may be that at this rate you don't have the time or the energy or the capability to repair glass as rapidly as it is being broken. What then will happen? If you can't repair glass fast enough by using your internal resources, going into the cellar and getting your ladder and doing it yourself, you will look for other ways to repair it. You will be strongly motivated to find other ways, for if you do not your house is going to eventually collapse under the assault. Fortunately you are likely to find some other ways.

You may call upon what I will call external resources. Your external resources would involve, for example, calling in neighbors to help you, calling in relatives, even calling in a professional glass repair service from the town to come with a truck and a crew to help you to restore your house. These external resources, in addition to your own use of internal resources, might be sufficient to repair your house fast enough to cope with even very frequent threats of rock throwing, such as every day or every few hours.

My students, at this point in the presentation of the metaphor, typically contribute their own likely responses, which include killing the people who are throwing the rocks, or at least threatening to kill them, or having them arrested, or suing them, etc., so that they will stop doing it. These are also reasonable responses to threat, and as with responses involving fixing the glass they fall into two categories. Internal resources would include personally confronting, killing, injuring, or threatening whoever was responsible for the throwing of the rocks. External resources would include relying upon the police, the neighbors, or the local vigilante group to do it for you.

If the level of rock throwing continues to escalate, there will be some point at which it will become so great that the total use of internal plus external resources will not be sufficient to ward off enough of the threat or to repair the damage fast enough. When that happens, the assault on the house will eventually succeed in destroying enough of it that its structural integrity will fail, and the house will collapse.

What happens when your house collapses? You still need a house. You still need something to keep the heat in and to keep the wind and the rain out, so you will probably build a new house. Assuming the presence of rock throwing is likely to continue, and you must for some reason build your house in the same place, are you going to build a house just like the last one? No. You say that would be stupid. The last house didn't work. In an environment of people throwing rocks at houses a glass house is not the kind of house to have. It doesn't function adequately in such an environment. So you build a different kind of house. What kind of house are you going to build? I don't really know. But I would suspect that you are going to build a house that is more capable of sustaining itself in the face of rock throwing assaults. Perhaps you will build a house made of brick or concrete blocks or poured concrete, with no windows or with unbreakable plexiglass windows. Maybe an underground house. Somehow the house you build is going to be different than the first one, and presumably it will be different in a way that will make it more capable of coping with the threats existing in the environment in which it must function.

You might have thought of other alternatives. Whatever they are, they are likely to be compatible with the analysis of options available to a person whose belief system is being threatened. The belief system, like the house, has functions to serve. Like threats to the house, threats to the belief system motivate one to respond in some fashion that eliminates the threatening source, or removes oneself from its influence, or if these are not feasible, to bring internal and/or external resources to bear in an effort to maintain the system in the face of threat. Where all these efforts prove insufficient, the original belief system is likely to collapse, and a new system, more suitable to the environment in which the individual is required to function, is likely to be adopted. The theory here to be developed assumes that the dynamic properties of the functions, threats to functioning, and responses to such threats as are described in the "Glass House Metaphor," parallel the dynamics of a person whose Belief System has been threatened.

That Belief Systems have functions is something that is seldom dealt with by other theories. The proposed theory asserts that one cannot adequately understand threat to the Belief System or the eventual collapse of the Belief System (in Shein's terms, unfreezing of the belief system; or in Freud's terms, destruction of the ego) without an understanding of the functions served by the system. What are these functions? And what might threaten the system such that it loses its ability to fulfill these functions? How does one cope with threats to the system? The central question for a theory of conversion is: Under what kinds of conditions do people respond to threat by adopting an ideology that is incompatible with previously held beliefs?

This book's title refers to "Fragile Realities," which may be interpreted in terms of the Glass House Metaphor. The possibility of a Belief System shattering as might a glass house, given threat that surpasses its capacity for defense, is indeed a point that the theory intends to convey. While the glass house is a metaphor for fragility and impermanence, it should be pointed out that in most situations, the houses that exist are quite suitable to their environments and are not, in those environments, fragile at all. A Belief System is usually very well suited to the environment in which it must function as well. It is usually well defended, as will be demonstrated, and is usually capable of warding off threats without much damage to its basic structure. But of most interest for a theory of ideological conversion are those extreme conditions where such defenses, which are usually adequate to the task, are overwhelmed, and in which a radical collapse and restructuring of the system may result. A person whose Belief System is overwhelmed may still survive and even flourish by acquiring a new and different Belief System, or by radical alteration of what remains of the old Belief System, just as a new and different house may be built to replace the glass house that was shattered by an environment of rock throwing.

Before moving beyond the glass house metaphor, let me explore one other important issue. Imagine that your house took you years to build at great personal sacrifice. It used to function well, and you have developed a powerful attachment to it. Currently it does not function well, and logically it would make sense to let go of it and to acquire a new and different house which is more capable of adequate functioning in the present environment. But you cannot bring yourself to give it up. Is this plausible? Yes. Do we also fail to give up beliefs or ideologies to which we have developed attachments, even when they fail to function adequately, and even if we have available alternatives likely to function better? Yes. If threat to a system's ability to function adequately in comparison with some standard of adequate functioning is the impetus for change or conversion, then attachment to the initial system creates commitment, or resistance to change, which must be overcome before conversion will be possible.

The Belief Systems of people, reflecting as they do all of the affective, behavioral, and cognitive orientations to attitude objects, have their parallels in all living organisms. The primitive system of orientations in a plant may cause it to orient its foliage towards the sun, and to orient its roots towards the source of water. Hummingbirds are oriented to fly to red colored objects (which in nature are nearly always flowers), and cats are oriented to prowl stealthily close to the ground in pursuit of fast moving small objects (mice). Animals are oriented to consume sweet tasting but not bitter tasting substances. It is for such purposes that systems of orientation exist. In primitive systems, it is because some variations in such systems work better than others that those variations are selected and innate features of systems of orientation are evolved. In more complex systems, learning based upon experience also contributes to the resulting system of orientations, but even learning proceeds essentially along lines designed to promote functional adaptation to one’s environment. Similarly, in the human system of orientations, the Belief System, encompassing as it does affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses, certain universal features reflect the universality of the human condition. More precisely, belief systems come into being, or do not, and subsequently persist or perish, as a result of processes, innate and acquired, all of which are dependent upon the functional success of those systems. Similar characteristics of Belief Systems come into existence to the extent that people share the same inherited human characteristics and thus the same capacity for conditioning and learning, and to the extent that all are subjected to the same environmentally imposed contingencies, they will develop similar acquired orientations to attitude objects.

PRESCRIPTION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR. Whatever else it does, a system of orientations must adequately prescribe behavior, for it is behavior that allows for adaptation to the environment. It seems not unreasonable to guess that most other universal features of systems of orientation exist because, at least at one time in the evolution of the species, they played a role in the prescription of adaptive behavior. Such prescriptions of behavior will contain purely behavioral unconditioned responses, reflexes, and instinctive behaviors, which may not be directly dependent upon either affect or cognition, but in the human species, much of the prescription of behavior is determined by or is influenced by relevant affective or cognitive orientations. Together, these contribute to the integrated set of orientations that we are calling the Belief System. It is the ability of this Belief System to prescribe adequate behavior that is essential for successful adaptation.

INTERNAL CONSISTENCY. Any system that contains elements that are internally inconsistent with each other will be less capable of consistent output. If the output is prescription of behavior, that behavior is likely to be erratic, and unpredictable. If, in fact, one way of responding is more adaptive than others, the prescription of that behavior will be less reliable in an internally inconsistent system. A system that is consistent in its prescription of inadequate behavior will not be useful, however, for consistency is not a sufficient, but a necessary condition of an adequately functioning system. This is not only true of biological systems, but of mechanical systems, social systems, and others as well. In complex systems involving multiple levels of internal processing, internal inconsistency may hinder the production of intermediate outputs critical to determination of the terminal output. Too much internal inconsistency may result not only in prescription of inadequate output, but may result in failure to produce any output at all. Because inadequate or insufficient prescription of behavior undermines one's capacity for successful adaptation to one’s environment, systems that are internally consistent will tend to be selected.

The fact that selected systems will tend to be internally consistent need not imply a Psychological or motivational "need" for consistency. It is possible that some systems are completely rigid and a result of initial design or genetics. Even so, in an evolutionary process, those with designs containing inconsistencies will be passed on less regularly than will those not containing such inconsistencies. This is a feedback effect. In a system that is not rigid, but that changes in response to environmental conditions or experiences, as is the case in biological systems capable of learning, level of inconsistency will change within the life of the system. Where this is the case, a "need" to maintain consistency, and the resulting motivation to reduce inconsistency, involving monitoring of consistency levels, may be a highly adaptive method for preventing the development of dangerously high levels of internal inconsistency.

Among the most influential theories in the field of social psychology over the past fifty years have been those which generically can be called consistency theories. These include Newcomb's (1956), ABX Model; Festinger's (1957), Theory of Cognitive Dissonance; Heider's (1958), Balance Theory; Abelson and Rosenberg's (1958) Model of Attitudinal Cognition; Rosenberg's (1960) Affective-Cognitive Consistency Theory; and many others. All of these have been subjected to extensive experimental research most of which has been designed to test specific predictions, and often to assess the merits of these and other theories relative to each other. For our purposes, it is not the differences in such theories that interests us at this point, but the similarities. All predict and have found substantial confirmation for the following: Inconsistency within the attitude-belief system is aversive. It is accompanied by signs of tension or stress and is reported to be unpleasant and undesirable. Systems that are internally inconsistent are inherently unstable, leading to motivated changes directed toward reducing inconsistency and restoring consistency.

It is my view that such motivation to reduce inconsistency is a pervasive feature of the human condition. Whether this is a result of an innate aversion to inconsistency, or to a universal tendency for inconsistency to be associated with more negative outcomes than is consistency in peoples' experience, is not known. Fortunately, for our needs in developing a theory of ideological conversion and commitment, it is not necessary to know why such a tendency exists but only that it does.

CERTAINTY: RELEVANCE, COMPLETENESS, AND COMPLEXITY. A system of orientations, whose function it is to prescribe behavior that promotes survival and reproduction, need not do anything else except what contributes to this end. In fact, it need be no more complex than is minimally necessary to do the job. Superfluous capacity in a system, with abilities to do what need not be done, will usually be counter-productive, for it will consume resources unnecessarily, it may interfere with what needs to be done, and the more complex it is, the more things can go wrong with it. Evolution is not likely to select for unrequired complexity, or unnecessary abilities, though remnants of systems no longer required because they have been superseded by more sophisticated ones are probably common. More important than overcapacity is the problem of insufficient capacity. Systems must, to function adequately, address the needs imposed by the environment in which the organism exists. They must not only prescribe behavior in a consistent manner, but they must prescribe some behavior whenever behavior is required. The prescription of behavior must be relevant to the demands placed on the organism in its environment. A good fit must be maintained between what is required of the system, and what the system is capable of providing. In rigid, genetically determined systems, this only becomes a problem when radical changes in the environment call for behaviors that evolution has not had sufficient time to select. In systems based upon learning, such as in people, it is possible for new learning to fill the gaps created by new environmental pressures. This new learning may occur as opportunities to learn reveal themselves, but waiting for such occasions may be risky. If the system is regularly monitored and assessed in terms of its capacity to respond with clarity and certainty, and if ambiguity and uncertainty are experienced as aversive, it is possible for the system to fill these gaps by a motivated process of uncertainty reduction before a critical response is called for. Such a motive to reduce uncertainty, as a motive to reduce inconsistency, combined with a monitoring process, can result in a system better able to maintain adequate behavioral prescription even in the face of changing environmental requirements.

The research of social psychologists has generally supported the view that uncertainty, like inconsistency, is generally perceived to be aversive, (cf. Festinger, 1954), and systems lacking a certain and unambiguous prescription of behavior are unstable, motivating such changes as are effective in reducing that uncertainty, (cf. Schachter, 1959; Wrightsman, 1960). As was the case for a motivation to maintain consistency, whether or not the motivation to maintain certainty of behavioral prescription is innate or learned is fortunately not an issue we need to resolve. For our purposes, of using such motivation in our analysis of ideological conversion and commitment, it is enough that it exists and that it is pervasive.

MOTIVATION. Issues of motivation, what causes it, what alters it, and what effects it exerts over the production of behavior, are amongst the oldest ever addressed by psychologists. As the driving force behind behavior, some form of motivation must be required for any behavior to occur. Current theorists agree upon little else, except perhaps that an initial and relatively simple motivational system is innate, and that by some means it becomes elaborated and complicated as a result of experience. I will not attempt to resolve the many controversies in this area, but will retreat to the narrower purposes for including it in my analysis. If we look at motivation as the energy source from which all behavior springs, then some level of motivation must be present or available to any organism whose evolution was contingent upon behavior. I will simply state some minimum conditions for motivation in viable systems of orientation.

A system of orientations, including a Belief System, will not function at all without sufficient energy to maintain essential processing of sensations, perceptions, and information concerning affect, behavior, and cognition. Even the least motivational of theories, such as attribution theories, require motivation to process the information upon which attributions are based. In low level processes, such as perceptual ones necessary to trigger release of instinctive behavior, allocation of sufficient energy is automatic and innate. Even in higher level processes, attention to an event may automatically lead to perception, comprehension, and storage of information. But attention itself is readily brought under the control of cognition in people, perception is influenced by expectations and other elements of the Belief System, and which aspects of the perceptual field are sufficiently processed to become stored in long term memory is dependent upon motivation derived from a combination of affect and cognition, much of which is not innate, but results from learning through experience.

Thus, in people, motivation is inextricably bound up in Belief System, involving in some fashion all of its various parts. The operation of the entire system is dependent upon there being a sufficiently high level of motivation to supply it with the necessary energy to function. It is also the case that motivation, involving as it does the affective system, can be too high for adequate functioning, especially where excessive affect can interfere with processing of information or with the efficient production of behavior. Thus, an adequately functioning Belief System will have some means of assuring that the motivational system is neither too weak nor too strong to allow for the prescription of and the ultimate production of suitable behavior.

Summary and Implications

The overview presented here of how and why systems of orientation have come to exist, and of why and how they have come to have certain characteristic features, provides a foundation for the development of a social psychological theory of ideological conversion and commitment processes. In people, the system of orientations is the Belief System, which encompasses also affect and behavior. The Belief System exists, as does any other system of orientations, because the species inherited it or inherited the capacity and the inclination to develop it. It did so because having an such a system has been advantageous in the struggle for survival and reproduction, which are dependent upon successful adaption to the environment. In the radically changing environments to which the human species has been exposed, systems having certain characteristic features have proven to be more effective than others at ensuring such adaption, and individuals whose genetics have provided the capacity and inclination to develop such systems were selected over others.

What has been selected is a capacity for and an inclination to develop a system of orientations, specifically, an integrated set of affective, behavioral and cognitive orientations to objects confronted in one’s environment. This system, referred to here as a Belief System, is inclined to have characteristic features. Chief among these is that it reliably prescribes behavior suitable to promoting survival and reproduction in a wide variety of possible environments. To do so it is greatly influenced by learning, and it displays relatively little of the rigid, stereotyped, responses common to many other species. It tends to be internally consistent, and where external influences disrupt that consistency, it employs a variety of monitoring and change processes directed to restoring it. It tends to be relatively complete, in that it provides prescriptions for behavior in all or most of the circumstances to which the individual is likely to be exposed, and for which some behavior is required. The system is characterized by a high degree of certainty. Lack of prescription, experienced as uncertainty, like inconsistency, sets in motion processes directed at its reduction. The Belief System will also tend to contain mechanisms that provide it with adequate motivation to process necessary information concerning affective, behavioral, and cognitive orientations. Motivation is also the means by which energy is given to processes of inconsistency and uncertainty reduction. Some means must also prevent an excess of motivation, especially as related to affective factors, such as might interfere with adequate prescription of or production of behavior.

The essence of this position is that people have Belief Systems because they serve certain functions, and they are, as a result of learning and motivational processes, capable of remarkable changes. As environmental conditions are altered, making old orientations no longer functional, new and more functional orientations can be developed to take their place. Both the old and the new are understandable only with reference to the functions they exist to serve and to the environments in which they are required to do so. Such systems are not, however, infinitely malleable, for they are limited by the capacities built into the species genetically.

The possibilities for potentially functional Belief Systems, including the ideologies that are often central to their organization, are infinite. While our own versions of reality, as embodied in our own systems, will inevitably seems superior to alternative versions, as a scientific enterprise we must guard against the temptation to accept some versions of reality as more natural, or as more valid than are others. All interpretations of reality, I will argue, exist because in the contexts in which they have developed, and in which they must function, they have met the evolutionary challenge. They facilitate successful adaption to one’s environment. They work. When they do not work, I will argue, those incapable of change will not successfully adapt, and processes of natural selection will result in fewer of such systems in subsequent generations. Those endowed with the capacity for altering their Belief Systems, however, including their very interpretation of reality, will be inclined to do so in ways that allow for adequate functioning in the presence of whatever environmental conditions they find themselves imbedded.

GROUP DYNAMICS EFFECTS ON BELIEF SYSTEMS.

Consider once again our "Glass House Metaphor." When I asked previously what a glass house might be for, the answer given was in terms of functions it serves such as keeping in the heat, and keeping out the rain. In some ways these parallel the functions of Belief Systems such as prescribing behavior. Imagine, however, that one purchases a house that is too big to conserve heat well, and is not particularly good at keeping out the rain, but the buyer is wealthy enough to afford it, and the house is a classic Victorian that to her is beautiful to look at, and owning it might impress her friends and enhance her social status. Is this plausible? I believe it is. But how does such a scenario relate to Belief Systems? Part of why we believe what we believe is not contingent upon the content of those beliefs, but is contingent upon how acceptance of those beliefs contributes to ensuring one’s status in or connection to groups of others. Being accepted by others has long been recognized in psychology as a possibly universal, and usually important motive in people.

How do beliefs relate to being accepted by others?

Since at least the 1950's, social psychologists have systematically studied such topics as conformity, affiliation, belongingness, and social identity, as well as their counterparts including deviance, isolation, and alienation. I will return to some of the relevant research and theory in later chapters, but at this point I want to highlight some of the more important of the well-established finding.

In the 1940's and 50's, Theodore Newcomb studied the influence of reference groups on people’s attitudes and beliefs. People in real life settings, over periods of months and years, altered their belief systems to make them more consistent with attitudes and beliefs that appeared to be dominant in the groups they aspired to, or already did, belong to. Failure to overtly conform to the views of groups of which one is a member was clearly established in the research of Stanley Schachter and others, as a basis for negative sanction and even rejection by those groups.

Conformity was shown by Solomon Asch and others to sometimes occur in response to such negative sanctions. Conformity behavior was sometimes only overt, not corresponding to internalized acceptance of the group’s views. In situations where such normative processes occur, Leon Festinger and others have established that the counter-attitudinal overt conformity response, because it is inconsistent with one’s privately accepted beliefs, creates cognitive dissonance, which is aversive. In such situations, subsequent to the overt response, change in the internalized attitude or belief, by accepting that the group was correct, occurs so as to reduce that dissonance.

In other cases, Asch showed that people accept the group position as true because they have come to use the group as source of information about reality. They subsequently conform overtly because they have internally accepted the group’s position. This information process is most likely if the group is attractive, appears to be homogeneous (unanimous), and is high in credibility (trustworthiness and expertise).

Ingroup-Outgroup Effects