Belief Perseverance
Jonestown cult members made a public declaration of their loyalty to Jim Jones by selling everyone of their personal possessions, and then followed him to the Republic of Guyana. Later, they would experience irrational manipulation and abuse, and they even stayed to the point of committing mass suicide when told them to do so. This terrible and unfortunate story is a perfect example of belief perseverance. Belief perseverance essentially states that if we decide that we believe something, then we will persevere in our belief, even when facing indisputable evidence proving otherwise. This is particularly applicable when the individual has stated their beliefs to other people, or if the others generally know the beliefs of the individual. The psychological term has been around since 1975, when two psychologists conducted an experiment in attempt to prove their hypothesis. The experiment asked participants to look at suicide notes to determine which were real and which were not real. A third of each of the participants were told that they were right 10, 17, and 24 out of 25 times. They were then told that they had been lied to and asked …show more content…
They are self-impression, social-impression, and naïve theory. The theory that I would like to focus on, is the naïve theory. Naive theory is a theory based on beliefs regarding how the world works. Most research on naive theories has focused on social theories, beliefs about people and how they think, feel, behave, and interact. This theory may include stereotypes about teenagers, Asian Americans, Muslims, beliefs about lawyers, artists, firefighters, and even beliefs relating to the causes of war, poverty, or violence. A practical application of this theory would be, someone who has been raised up and fostered in a racist environment, is likely to be racist towards a given demographic, even though all members of that demographic have been nothing but kind and polite to him or
Jonestown cult members made a public declaration of their loyalty to Jim Jones by selling everyone of their personal possessions, and then followed him to the Republic of Guyana. Later, they would experience irrational manipulation and abuse, and they even stayed to the point of committing mass suicide when told them to do so. This terrible and unfortunate story is a perfect example of belief perseverance. Belief perseverance essentially states that if we decide that we believe something, then we will persevere in our belief, even when facing indisputable evidence proving otherwise. This is particularly applicable when the individual has stated their beliefs to other people, or if the others generally know the beliefs of the individual. The psychological term has been around since 1975, when two psychologists conducted an experiment in attempt to prove their hypothesis. The experiment asked participants to look at suicide notes to determine which were real and which were not real. A third of each of the participants were told that they were right 10, 17, and 24 out of 25 times. They were then told that they had been lied to and asked …show more content…
They are self-impression, social-impression, and naïve theory. The theory that I would like to focus on, is the naïve theory. Naive theory is a theory based on beliefs regarding how the world works. Most research on naive theories has focused on social theories, beliefs about people and how they think, feel, behave, and interact. This theory may include stereotypes about teenagers, Asian Americans, Muslims, beliefs about lawyers, artists, firefighters, and even beliefs relating to the causes of war, poverty, or violence. A practical application of this theory would be, someone who has been raised up and fostered in a racist environment, is likely to be racist towards a given demographic, even though all members of that demographic have been nothing but kind and polite to him or