Belief Perseverance

Have you experienced having such as strong belief in something that no matter how other people or parties contradict you would not give up on your belief?  If so, then it is a psychological phenomenon called belief perseverance.  This happens most of the times to save your face from possible disgrace or embarrassment.

But at times, this occurs if you really have such strong conviction into something thing that you really believe and you tend to think that no one can change your thought.  Now, are you intrigued with it and would want to how it could affect you in many ways?

What Is Belief Perseverance?

For better understanding, it is best to describe the phenomenon in a more detailed manner.  Basically, belief perseverance is the tendency to stick to certain ideas when presented with evidences to the opposite.

The resistant might be the reason for people to cling into opinions when that certain belief is proven to be completely false.

The thing with this is that it can be in a form of delusion as when a person decided that he believes in something, he will keep on his beliefs despite of the presence of evidences that are not conforming to the belief.

If other people know about this, it can be totally embarrassing to withdraw from past assertions.

How Belief Perseverance Can Be Identified?

Typically, certain individuals face and discharge contradictory evidence almost every day.  For example, if a person who firmly believes that he can drive well receives traffic ticket might think that this one instance does not have an effect regarding his total ability to drive.

However, if a person who has received consecutive traffic tickets in one month believes that he can drive well possibly has belief perseverance or perhaps it is still at work.

By having a clear idea of this phenomenon and a little bit of assessment skills identifying this condition can be fairly easy.

The Different Categories

Various studies have revealed that belief perseverance falls into three classifications which are the following:

Self-impressions – This category may overstate or understate the characteristics of an individual

Social impressions – This is associated to the certain qualities that these people have

Naive impressions – This relates to how the world works such as stereotypes, social groups as well as hopes in the future.

Is It Good or Bad?

In actuality, there is no absolute answer to this question as the outcomes really depend on what the person believes into.  It may be good or bad depending on the circumstance.  It will be more appreciated if you will think about smoking.

A lot of studies have shown that it can be a causative factor for cancer and other diseases.  The results of these studies are but smokers do suffer from belief perseverance with the thought that smoking will not cause any harm to their health.

However, it can also have a positive effect on individuals who have a firm belief on their abilities.  In these instances, this phenomenon can have a good outcome as it helps to achieve success.