Changing A Belief Means Changing How You Feel: The Role of Emotions in Cognitive Immunology

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there’s no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Aristotle stated that feelings play an essential role in helping someone change their mind. He cautioned that “the orator persuades when [listeners] are roused to emotion by his speech.”¹ Similarly, Spinoza defined emotions as “states that make the mind inclined to think one thing rather than another.”²  These philosophers were prescient in understanding what psychotherapists have long known and science has now confirmed: there is no thought without feeling. All thought is affect-laden and important personal beliefs very much so.³ In analyzing the role of emotion in rationality Donovan Schaefer cautions us against forgetting this fundamental truth about human nature:

           … The reason / emotion binary is a mistake. Thinking feels. There’s no thinking that doesn’t feel, and nothing that we know that we don’t know through feeling … Changing our minds means changing how we feel … The feeling / reason binary makes it impossible to see that all kinds of knowledge production are defined by structures of feeling — sprawling grids of emotion that make our existing prejudices feel like neutral reason.³

Schaeffer is correct: changing your mind does indeed mean changing how you feel, especially so for beliefs, which are more emotion-sensitive than knowledge.⁴ Further, salient beliefs, i.e., convictions that are experienced as central to survival, identity, and attachment are even more emotion-sensitive than other beliefs. Toxic beliefs engendered by disinformation and of concern to cognitive immunology are nearly always salient beliefs, i.e., pivotal to the believer’s identity, affect regulation and affiliative needs.⁵ If a debunking message is perceived as a direct threat to a salient belief, intense negative emotions can activate strategies to discredit the source or ignore the evidence.⁶ In short, “emotions can awaken, intrude into, and shape beliefs, by creating them, by amplifying or altering them, and by making them resistant to change.”⁷

Thus, changing a salient belief, toxic or otherwise, is often too heavy a lift for reason alone. If reason could do it alone, debunking would proceed easily; instead, we typically confront the unyielding tenacity of unreasonable salient beliefs in the face of overwhelming disconfirming information. Discarding or modifying a salient belief entails not only rational evaluation of the upstream evidence and downstream consequences of the belief. It often necessitates awareness of and engagement with strong feelings, both conscious and pre-conscious, that inhibit one from changing one’s mind despite evidence to the contrary. This inhibition happens because emotions both provide evidence and guide attention.⁸

Purely rational evaluation of the evidence against a toxic salient belief without intruding affect is unattainable because feelings are used as evidence and “beliefs are adjusted to be compatible with internal evidence in the form of feelings, just as they are adjusted to be compatible with external evidence from perceptual experience.”⁹ When evaluating a claim or belief statement people typically ask themselves not only “what do I think about that claim?” but “how do I feel about that claim?” and then use their feelings as an important information source. Further, feelings “may be experienced as internal evidence for beliefs which rivals the power of external evidence from the environment” and may be given more weight than reason and evidence.¹⁰

Feelings also guide attention. The interplay between emotion, information, belief, and attentional focus is complex, multi-directional, and self-sustaining. Feelings guide attention to information that supports and intensifies the emotion, which further focuses attention and creates a self-confirming positive feedback loop.¹¹  “Strong feelings tend to elicit a search for supporting beliefs” and, conversely, beliefs tend to elicit a search for information that reinforces associated emotions (“belief-guided attentional focus.”)¹²

People also have feelings about knowing. These “cognitive feelings” may be positive and include surprise, coherence, insight, and the pleasure of things “clicking” into place. Negative cognitive feelings may include dissonance, confusion, anxiety, and disgust. Cognitive feelings influence credulity to new knowing which may require changing one’s mind about what is “true.”¹³ The relevant point here for cognitive immunology is that “even in the case of purely logical arguments, people need to feel that the case against their position is compelling before they change their minds.” ¹⁴ Donovan Schaefer discusses this in the context of cogency theory:

New knowledge feels true to us because it lands on our existing landscape of understanding in a way that fits. It clicks with the terrain already in place. If the landscape is skewed, if it’s out of alignment with the way the world actually is — then the knowledge that clicks with it will all be twisted, too. Cogency theory asserts that arguments are accepted as true because they feel true …. Why cogency? To say an argument is cogent doesn’t mean, exactly, that it’s true. It means it appeals, or it’s compelling. It means it feels true. It has a pull — a weight. Cogency takes knowledge-making out of a binary frame, in which sovereign reason sizes up a situation, strokes its chin, and then judiciously flicks the switch to yes or no. It suggests, instead, knowledge-making as an ongoing process — a contest of forces — and specifically as a constant measuring and remeasuring of the felt weight of facts. Cogency lights up the way our spectrum of confidence and conviction is always constituted by feeling. New information that tips the balance adds weight. Changing our minds means changing how we feel … Believing means one of these struggling currents of feeling has prevailed. It has, for now, been found cogent.¹⁵

In short, strong feelings often restrain and obstruct people from changing salient beliefs. The modest intent of my contribution to the symposium is simply to remind us of this commonsense fact and call our attention to its practical implication: a praxis of mental immunology should consider the role of emotion as well as cognition in countering unreasonable belief and toxic disinformation.

Taking into account the role emotion plays in belief does not mean merely teaching people to bracket or set aside their feelings the way philosophers are trained to do as they seek truth. Nor does it mean relying on the jolt of satisfaction that discovering truth delivers to scientists. Most people are neither well-trained nor responsible thinkers, nor rewarded by truth-seeking and intellectual achievement in the way philosophers and scientists are. Rather, to use Jonathan Haidt’s well-known metaphor, we need to attend to the emotional elephant as well as the reasoning rider for the rider to have any chance of controlling the elephant she sits astride.¹⁶

So, what might this look like in practice? When I was a psychology graduate student back in the 1970s, I was trained in both client-centered and cognitive therapy. Client-centered therapy centers on active (i.e., reflective) listening, empathy, and clarification of content and affect. Cognitive therapy focuses on how thoughts and beliefs cause feelings and how modifying thoughts can change feeling-states. My subsequent career as a psychotherapist taught me that both approaches are more powerful when combined than either alone.

For example, in cognitive therapy clients are often taught to use evidentiary weights to dispute irrational beliefs. However, as Schaefer puts it, because reason feels “it is susceptible, rather than immune, to the … emotions swirling around it.”¹⁷ In other words, rational analysis of evidentiary weights can be rendered ineffective by associated affect. Reasoning is necessary but often insufficient. Therefore, I found cognitive therapy more effective if I also empathically helped clients reflect on how the irrational belief made them feel and what was difficult and/or anxiety-provoking about giving it up. It was often the difference between pulling out a weed by its stalks or by its roots.

In his book, Mental Immunity Andy Norman refers to using evidentiary weights in belief evaluation as the “fulcrum of reason,” and illustrates it as follows:¹⁸

For the evidentiary fulcrum to work smoothly, the role of emotion needs to be considered. To incorporate emotion into Norman’s diagram, think of feelings as akin to a fluid applied to reason’s fulcrum ... it can be an abrasive retardant which makes the lever hard to budge despite evidentiary weight, or a salving lubricant that makes it easier to move up and down. Reason (evidentiary weight) alone may move the lever but using an “affective lubricant” can move it easier, smoother, and faster.

So, the task becomes how to enlist feelings as a lubricant in the service of reason rather than in the service of unreasonable belief. Helping a person give voice to associated affect or even informing the person that they may be experiencing certain emotions may reduce the potency of those fears and feelings. It may also be helpful to foster “lubricant” attitudes like humility and curiosity. Lastly, encouraging a person to uncouple personal identity from beliefs may grease the skids, i.e. changing the conviction “I am my beliefs” to “I have beliefs” may reduce a person’s fears of identity dissolution if they believe differently and allow evidentiary weight to move reason’s fulcrum more easily.

Further, as we all know, people hold on to false beliefs tenaciously, almost as if they are addicted to them or would go into withdrawal if they quit them cold turkey. Drug and alcohol use provides pleasure, reduces pain, and sometimes connects one to others, i.e., it performs important psychological functions. A willingness to abstain depends on a belief that there are alternative ways of meeting hedonistic, analgesic, and social needs. In cognitive immunology terms, people need to be encouraged to believe in evidentiary-based believing, to trust that this method of deciding what is true will provide its own rewards.

Lastly, a person’s general mood state when debunking occurs may affect its efficacy. “One way in which affect influences beliefs is via mood-congruent biases: we are more likely to notice, encode, remember, and make use of information that is congruent with a prevailing mood state.”¹⁹ Researchers have found that “countering disinformation that fuels fear or anger can benefit from downward adjustment of emotional arousal” and “while engaged with content individuals should slow down [and] think about why they are engaging.”²⁰  This suggests that when debunking it might be profitable to begin with some relaxation exercises intended to reduce emotional arousal.

Two caveats are in order. First, I think all the foregoing pertains more to debunking than pre-bunking. Second, while cognitive therapy is more concerned with how thoughts cause feelings, I am here more concerned with how feelings cause – or at least how they entrench – thoughts. For example, confirmation bias is essentially a motivational state (wanting to be right) which directs attention so that disconfirming evidence is ignored. The causal chain here is emotion --> attention --> belief. It is the emotion (the motivational state) that entrenches that belief, more than faulty reasoning.  

In exploring a person’s feelings about their beliefs, consider asking them three questions: (1) How does this belief make you feel? What feelings are associated with the belief? For example, belief in a conspiracy theory may help a person feel safe, smart, superior, or connected to a community of fellow believers.  (2) How do you imagine it would feel to relinquish the belief?  For example, giving up a salient belief may cause a person to feel alone, anxious, or traitorous. (3) How might it feel to believe differently?

A final thought.  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may have something to bring to the table here.²¹ ACT recognizes that helping people articulate and commit to valued life goals is an important precursor of behavior change. For example, helping a person identify and declare that “being a good parent” is a highly-valued life goal facilitates motivation to identify and then change thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which are obstacles to that goal. This same process might be applied to toxic beliefs. Life goals such as “being a good neighbor” or “being open-minded” if articulated, may help a person identify and change beliefs that are obstacles to those goals.

To summarize, this review of the role of emotion in belief suggests that debunking may be more effective if intervention begins with a relaxation exercise, followed by an empathic conversation centered on the person’s feelings about their beliefs, next an elicitation of commitment to the values of open-mindedness and evidentiary belief, and lastly a presentation of disconfirming evidence and reasoned argument.  All too often, the cart is put before the horse and dialogue begins with evidence and argument, only to have feelings and other types of commitments (e.g., group loyalty) derail the process.

In closing, this paper’s reminder that information and logic are often insufficient to rid most people of toxic beliefs may have made for a dispiriting read for cognitive immunologists. However, as Donovan Schaefer points out, remember that “yes, we believe what we want to believe; but one of the things we want to believe is the way things actually are.”²²

References:

[1] Frijda, N., Manstead, A. & Bem, S.  (2000) The influence of emotions on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.) Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 pp.1-9; quotation on p. 1

[2] Memon, Z. & Treur, J. (2010) On the reciprocal interaction between believing and feeling: An adaptive agent modelling perspective. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 4, 377–394; quotation on page 378  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-010-9136-7

[3] Schaefer, D. (2022) Wild experiment: Feeling science and secularism after Darwin. Duke University Press. quotation on pp. 6 & 8.

[4] “We suggest that the link with action is stronger in the case of emotions than it is in the case of beliefs; and that it is stronger in beliefs than it is in knowledge. In the philosophical tradition belief is distinguished from knowledge by reference to the truth value and claim to objectivity of knowledge: "True'' knowledge is distinguished from ``mere'' belief. Psychology is less interested in this question of de jure, the question of the justification of a proposition; it is more concerned about the question of de facto, the psychological reality. Thus whether Dracula exists or not is less important for psychology than the fact that Rachel believes and hopes that he will pay her a visit tonight. If there is a difference between knowledge and belief that is of psychological significance, it is the way in which they vary with respect to preparing the individual to act. To have a belief is not so much to claim to have true knowledge as to take a ``risk'' and be prepared to take action. This implies that beliefs should be more emotion-sensitive than knowledge.”

Frijda, N., Manstead, A. & Bem, S. (2000) The influence of emotions on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.) Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 1-9); quotation on p. 4.

[5] For a description of what is meant by a toxic idea, see Chapter 4 “Six Immune Disruptive Ideas” in Norman, Andy (2021) Mental Immunity: Infectious ideas, mind parasites, and the search for a better way to think. Harper Wave.

[6] Ecker, U., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Schmid, P., Fasio, L., Brashier, N., Kendeou, P., Vraga, E. & Amazeen, A.  (2022) The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews -- Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 13–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y, pp. 17-18

[7] Frijda, N., Manstead, A. & Bem, S.  (2000) The influence of emotions on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S.  (Eds.)  Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 1-9); quotation on p. 5.

[8] Frijda, N., Manstead, A. & Bem, S.  (2000) The influence of emotions on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.) Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 1-9);

[9] Clore, G. & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.) Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 10- 44); quotation on p 12.

Ecker, U., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Schmid, P., Fasio, L., Brashier, N., Kendeou, P., Vraga, E. & Amazeen, A.  (2022) The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews -- Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 13–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y, pp. 17-18

[10]  Clore, G. & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.) Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 10- 44). quotation on p. 13.

[11] Clore, G. & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.)  Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 10- 44); quotation on p. 19.

[12] Clore, G. & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.). Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 10- 44); quotations on pp. 12, 18.

[13] Schaefer, D. (2022) Wild experiment: Feeling science and secularism after Darwin. Duke University Press.

Clore, G. & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.). Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 10- 44).

[14] Clore, G. & Gasper, K. (2000). Feeling is believing: Some affective influences on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.). Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 10- 44); quotation on p. 12.

[15] Schaefer, D. (2022) Wild experiment: Feeling science and secularism after Darwin. Duke University Press., quotation on pp. 6 & 8-9.

[16] Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Pantheon Books.

[17] Schaefer, D. (2022) Wild experiment: Feeling science and secularism after Darwin. Duke University Press., quotation on p. 8.

[18] Norman, Andy (2021) Mental immunity: Infectious ideas, mind-parasites, and the search for a better way to think. Harper Wave.

[19] Frijda, N., Manstead, A. & Bem, S.  (2000) The influence of emotions on belief. In Frijda, N., Manstead, A., & Bem, S. (Eds.). Emotions and beliefs: How feelings influence thoughts. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659904 (pp. 1-9); quotation on p. 7.

[20] Ecker, U., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Schmid, P., Fasio, L., Brashier, N., Kendeou, P., Vraga, E. & Amazeen, A.  (2022) The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction. Nature Reviews -- Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 13–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-021-00006-y, p. 18.

[21] Harris, R. and Hayes, S. (2019) ACT made simple: An easy-to-read primer on acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger.

[22] Schaefer, D. (2022) Wild experiment: Feeling science and secularism after Darwin. Duke University Press., quotation on p. 18.