Network Structure Impacts the Synchronization of Collective Beliefs

People’s beliefs are influenced by interactions within their communities. The propagation of this influence through conversational social networks should impact the degree to which community members synchronize their beliefs. To investigate, we recruited a sample of 140 participants and constructed fourteen 10-member communities. Participants first rated the accuracy of a set of statements (pre-test) and were then provided with relevant evidence about them. Then, participants discussed the statements in a series of conversational interactions, following pre-determined network structures (clustered/non-clustered). Finally, they rated the accuracy of the statements again (post-test). The results show that belief synchronization, measuring the increase in belief similarity among individuals within a community from pre-test to post-test, is influenced by the community’s conversational network structure. This synchronization is circumscribed by a degree of separation effect and is equivalent in the clustered and non-clustered networks. We also find that conversational content predicts belief change from pre-test to post-test.

A Semantics for Hyperintensional Belief Revision Based on Information Bases

I propose a novel hyperintensional semantics for belief revision and a corresponding system of dynamic doxastic logic. The main goal of the framework is to reduce some of the idealisations that are common in the belief revision literature and in dynamic epistemic logic. The models of the new framework are primarily based on potentially incomplete or inconsistent collections of information, represented by situations in a situation space. I propose that by shifting the representational focus of doxastic models from belief sets to collections of information, and by defining changes of beliefs as artifacts of changes of information, we can achieve a more realistic account of belief representation and belief change. The proposed dynamic operation suggests a non-classical way of changing beliefs: belief revision occurs in non-explosive environments which allow for a non-monotonic and hyperintensional belief dynamics. A logic that is sound with respect to the semantics is also provided.

Applications in Epistemology

This chapter applies ranking theory to two problems in epistemology and the philosophy of science: conceptual belief change, including logical learning, as well as learning indicative conditionals. The chapter concludes with a defense of rigidity.

Belief and Counterfactuals

This book is the first of two volumes on belief and counterfactuals. It consists of six of a total of eleven chapters. The first volume is concerned primarily with questions in epistemology and is expository in parts. Among other theories, it provides an accessible introduction to belief revision and ranking theory. Ranking theory specifies how conditional beliefs should behave. It does not tell us why they should do so nor what they are. This book fills these two gaps. The consistency argument tells us why conditional beliefs should obey the laws of ranking theory by showing them to be the means to attaining the end of holding true and informative beliefs. The conditional theory of conditional belief tells us what conditional beliefs are by specifying their nature in terms of non-conditional belief and counterfactuals. In addition, the book contains several novel arguments, accounts, and applications. These include an argument for the thesis that there are only hypothetical imperatives and no categorical imperatives; an account of the instrumentalist understanding of normativity, or rationality, according to which one ought to take the means to one’s ends; as well as solutions to the problems of conceptual belief change, logical learning, and learning conditionals. A distinctive feature of the book is its unifying methodological approach: means-end philosophy. Means-end philosophy takes serious that philosophy is a normative discipline, and that philosophical problems are entangled with each other. It also explains the importance of logic to philosophy, without being a technical theory itself.

Pre-service teachers' evaluation of belief relevant information on a controversial issue in Āotearoa, New Zealand: Should te reo Māori be compulsory in New Zealand schools?

<p>The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate the influence beliefs have on pre-service teachers' evaluations of belief-relevant arguments and belief change on a controversial issue. In the quantitative phase, pre-service teachers (n = 23) at a university in New Zealand completed a topic belief-scale on a controversial issue in Āotearoa/New Zealand (i.e., Should te reo Māori be compulsory in New Zealand schools?). Then they read a text that included arguments for and against compulsory Te reo Māori while they thought-aloud (i.e., verbalized their thoughts as they read). After they read, they completed the topic-belief scale again. The quantitative results showed that participants tended to make refutational comments when they read belief-incompatible arguments, whereas they tended to make supportive comments when the read belief-compatible arguments. Further, their beliefs became stronger after they read. In the qualitative phase, interviews were conducted and analysed to explain why some participants' beliefs became stronger, whereas other participants' beliefs did not change. The interview data revealed individual and contextual factors influenced how participants evaluated the text and were related to their beliefs after they read. These data provide important information about the role of individual experiences in preservice teacher beliefs about a controversial topic on cultural responsiveness.</p>

Pre-service teachers' evaluation of belief relevant information on a controversial issue in Āotearoa, New Zealand: Should te reo Māori be compulsory in New Zealand schools?

<p>The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate the influence beliefs have on pre-service teachers' evaluations of belief-relevant arguments and belief change on a controversial issue. In the quantitative phase, pre-service teachers (n = 23) at a university in New Zealand completed a topic belief-scale on a controversial issue in Āotearoa/New Zealand (i.e., Should te reo Māori be compulsory in New Zealand schools?). Then they read a text that included arguments for and against compulsory Te reo Māori while they thought-aloud (i.e., verbalized their thoughts as they read). After they read, they completed the topic-belief scale again. The quantitative results showed that participants tended to make refutational comments when they read belief-incompatible arguments, whereas they tended to make supportive comments when the read belief-compatible arguments. Further, their beliefs became stronger after they read. In the qualitative phase, interviews were conducted and analysed to explain why some participants' beliefs became stronger, whereas other participants' beliefs did not change. The interview data revealed individual and contextual factors influenced how participants evaluated the text and were related to their beliefs after they read. These data provide important information about the role of individual experiences in preservice teacher beliefs about a controversial topic on cultural responsiveness.</p>

An Epistemological Study of Theory Change

Belief Revision is a well-established field of research that deals with how agents rationally change their minds in the face of new information. The milestone of Belief Revision is a general and versatile formal framework introduced by Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson, known as the AGM paradigm, which has been, to this date, the dominant model within the field. A main shortcoming of the AGM paradigm, as originally proposed, is its lack of any guidelines for relevant change. To remedy this weakness, Parikh proposed a relevance-sensitive axiom, which applies on splittable theories; i.e., theories that can be divided into syntax-disjoint compartments. The aim of this article is to provide an epistemological interpretation of the dynamics (revision) of splittable theories, from the perspective of Kuhn's inuential work on the evolution of scientific knowledge, through the consideration of principal belief-change scenarios. The whole study establishes a conceptual bridge between rational belief revision and traditional philosophy of science, which sheds light on the application of formal epistemological tools on the dynamics of knowledge.

Why and when beliefs change: A multi-attribute value-based decision problem

Why people do or do not change their beliefs has been a long-standing puzzle. Sometimes people hold onto false beliefs despite ample contradictory evidence; sometimes they change their beliefs without sufficient reason. Here, we propose that the utility of a belief is derived from the potential outcomes of holding it. Outcomes can be internal (e.g., positive/negative feelings) or external (e.g., material gain/loss), and only some are dependent on belief accuracy. Belief change can then be understood as an economic transaction, in which the multidimensional utility of the old belief is compared against that of the new belief. Change will occur when potential outcomes alter across attributes, for example due to changing environments, or when certain outcomes are made more or less salient.

A Characterization of Probability-based Dichotomous Belief Revision

This article investigates the properties of multistate top revision, a dichotomous (AGM-style) model of belief revision that is based on an underlying model of probability revision. A proposition is included in the belief set if and only if its probability is either 1 or infinitesimally close to 1. Infinitesimal probabilities are used to keep track of propositions that are currently considered to have negligible probability, so that they are available if future information makes them more plausible. Multistate top revision satisfies a slightly modified version of the set of basic and supplementary AGM postulates, except the inclusion and success postulates. This result shows that hyperreal probabilities can provide us with efficient tools for overcoming the well known difficulties in combining dichotomous and probabilistic models of belief change.