A cognitive account of belief: a tentative road map

Significant insights from a National survey in China: PrEP awareness, willingness, uptake, and adherence among YMSM students

INTRODUCTION

Few studies focused on the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) -related aspects, and the applicability of prior evidence to young men who have sex with men (YMSM) students was unknown. This study aimed to assess the awareness, willingness, uptake, and adherence (AWUA) to PrEP among YMSM students in China and to explore the associated factors with these stages.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey with a sizable sample of 1151 was conducted among YMSM students aged 16 and above, who self-identified as men who have sex with men(MSM) and resided in mainland China between October 20 and December 20, 2021. The chi-square test and Fisher's exact test were used for univariate analysis, followed by multivariable logistic regression analysis of influencing factors at all levels.

RESULTS

According to the cascade analysis approach, 88.71% of the participants were aware of PrEP, among which 66.7% expressed willingness to use it. Among those who were willing to use PrEP, only 13.80% took it, and of those who took it, 44.68% adhered to it. The students taking PrEP were those with higher education (OR = 4.239, 95% CI: 1.334-13.467), residence in pilot cities (OR = 2.791, 95% CI: 1.498-5.198), residence in high-risk areas (OR = 5.082, 95% CI: 2.224-11.612), engagement in multi-person sexual behavior (OR = 2.186, 95% CI: 1.236-3.867), and substance use (OR = 1.908, 95% CI: 1.167-3.118). Furtherly, students with higher adherence to PrEP were likely to have receptive sexual behaviors (OR = 8.702, 95% CI: 2.070-36.592), absence of substance use (OR = 4.468, 95% CI: 1.371-14.561), and uptake of PrEP through daily oral route. (OR = 7.065, 95% CI: 1.699-29.371).

CONCLUSION

YMSM students exhibit distinct patterns of "high awareness, low willingness, low uptake, and low adherence" to PrEP. Strategies for reduction in the acquisition of HIV prioritizing the current features of utilizing PrEP were urgently warranted.

The mindful leader: a review of leadership qualities derived from mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness has been practiced by global leaders and companies as an efficient way to build effective leadership. Because of its popularity, plus the lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework that explains it in a leadership context, the research literature has called for a coherent account of the qualities that is derived by those leaders that practice mindfulness. Here, we aim to answer that call, by clarifying what leadership qualities can develop from practicing mindfulness. We report on a semi-systematic literature review of extant research, covering 19 research articles published between 2000 and 2021, plus other relevant supporting literature from the disciplines of leadership and neuropsychology. Our proposed framework consists of three main qualities of the mindful leader: attention, awareness, and authenticity. We call them the "three pillars of mindful leaders." We also propose that mindfulness meditation must be integrated into our proposed framework, as we are convinced that leaders who hope to benefit from these qualities must integrate a regular mindfulness meditation practice into their daily leadership life.

Motivated Cognition in Cooperation

Successful cooperation is tightly linked to individuals' beliefs about their interaction partners, the decision setting, and existing norms, perceptions, and values. This article reviews and integrates findings from judgment and decision-making, social and cognitive psychology, political science, and economics, developing a systematic overview of the mechanisms underlying motivated cognition in cooperation. We elaborate on how theories and concepts related to motivated cognition developed in various disciplines define the concept and describe its functionality. We explain why beliefs play such an essential role in cooperation, how they can be distorted, and how this fosters or harms cooperation. We also highlight how individual differences and situational factors change the propensity to engage in motivated cognition. In the form of a construct map, we provide a visualization of the theoretical and empirical knowledge structure regarding the role of motivated cognition, including its many interdependencies, feedback loops, and moderating influences. We conclude with a brief suggestion for a future research agenda based on this compiled evidence.

A Network Approach to Investigate the Dynamics of Individual and Collective Beliefs: Advances and Applications of the BENDING Model

Changing entrenched beliefs to alter people's behavior and increase societal welfare has been at the forefront of behavioral-science research, but with limited success. Here, we propose a new framework of characterizing beliefs as a multidimensional system of interdependent mental representations across three cognitive structures (e.g., beliefs, evidence, and perceived norms) that are dynamically influenced by complex informational landscapes: the BENDING (Beliefs, Evidence, Norms, Dynamic Information Networked Graphs) model. This account of individual and collective beliefs helps explain beliefs' resilience to interventions and suggests that a promising avenue for increasing the effectiveness of misinformation-reduction efforts might involve graph-based representations of communities' belief systems. This framework also opens new avenues for future research with meaningful implications for some of the most critical challenges facing modern society, from the climate crisis to pandemic preparedness.

Emotion beliefs: conceptual review and compendium

Laypeople hold richly divergent beliefs about emotion, and these beliefs are consequential. Specific forms of belief that have been investigated include the usefulness, contagiousness, duration, dependence upon intersubjective experience, cognitively mediated properties, malleability, and hindering properties of emotion, just to name a few. Progress in this emerging sub-field of research has been hampered by the lack of a widely accepted definition of emotion belief able to capture all of these dimensions. Correspondingly, there has been a proliferation of different terminologies, constructs, and measures. The present review aims to address these obstacles by defining emotion belief, and subsequently re-considering existing constructs and measures that align with this definition. The latter is presented in the form of a comprehensive compendium of 21 different constructs and associated self-report measures that assess varying components of one's beliefs about emotions in general and/or about their own emotions, and an additional 5 scales that were designed to measure one's beliefs about another's emotions. From the more unified conceptualization of emotion belief presented here, critical areas of future research are highlighted.

Parental Beliefs About the Motor Development of Dutch Infants Born Very Preterm: A Cohort Study

PURPOSE

To explore the influence of preterm birth on parental beliefs about gross motor development and parents' supportive role in infants' motor development.

METHODS

Prospective cohort study: Parents of infants born very preterm (VPT) (gestation ≤32 weeks, birth weight <1500 g, without perinatal complications) and parents of healthy infants born full-term (FT) completed the Parental Beliefs on Motor Development questionnaire.

RESULTS

Questionnaires from 37 parents of infants born VPT, aged 3.5 to 7.5 months (corrected), and 110 parents of infants born FT, aged 3.5 months, were analyzed. Parents of infants born VPT believed stimulating motor development to be more important than parents of infants born FT (F = 5.22; P = .024; ηp2 = 0.035). Most parents of infants born VPT (82.4%) and FT (85.2%) acknowledged their role in supporting motor development. More parents of infants born VPT (41.2% vs 12.0%) believed they should follow their infant's natural developmental pace.

CONCLUSION

Knowledge of parental beliefs and parents' supporting role in motor development is relevant for tailoring pediatric physiotherapists' interventions with families.

The Nepean Belief Scale (NBS) as a tool to investigate the intensity of beliefs in anorexia nervosa: psychometric properties of the Italian version

BACKGROUND

People with anorexia nervosa (AN) show a peculiar impairment of insight regarding their condition, often manifesting a denial of extreme emaciation and sometimes hiding or underreporting socially undesirable abnormal eating patterns. Sometimes the intensity of the beliefs held by patients with AN reach a delusional intensity.

OBJECTIVES

In this study, the Italian version of the Nepean Belief Scale was applied to a sample of patients diagnosed with AN to investigate the intensity of their beliefs and convictions and its clinical correlates.

METHODS

The Nepean Belief Scale (NBS) was translated and adapted to Italian and applied to a sample of patients diagnosed with AN based on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5).

RESULTS

The Italian version of the 5-item NBS showed excellent reliability. Convergent validity was proved by negative association with levels of insight measured with the Schedule for the Assessment of Insight in Eating Disorders. Beliefs of delusional intensity were reported by 10% of participants. Those with a greater intensity of beliefs, either overvalued or delusional ideas, were more likely to report poorer general cognitive performances on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. No association was observed between NBS score and age, body mass index, symptoms of eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, or levels of depression. Fear of weight gain and control seeking were the most often reported themes at the NBS.

CONCLUSIONS

The Italian version of the NBS is a reasonably reliable, valid, and usable tool for the multidimensional assessment of insight in AN. Level of evidence Level III, Evidence obtained from well-designed cohort or case-control analytic studies.

Worldviews and the role of social values that underlie them

In today's ideologically diverse world, it is pertinent to have a better understanding of how our beliefs of the social world shape our thinking and behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the key social values that underlie particular sets of beliefs, referred to here as worldviews. Worldviews encompass beliefs that shape one's outlook on life and are, therefore, instrumental in providing meaning to one's reality and one's understanding as to how one fits in it. They can be classified into five unique types, namely, Localised, Orthodox, Pragmatist, Reward, and Survivor. In this paper we start by proposing a theoretical relationship between this five-factor typology and social values. Following this, we present findings that show that worldviews may be mapped onto the two higher order value dimensions of Openness to Change versus Conservation, and Self-transcendence versus Self-Enhancement. We conclude by outlining the implications that these findings have on understanding individual cognition and society in general.

Bridging the gap between believing and memory functions

Believing has recently been recognized as a fundamental brain function linking a person’s experience with his or her attitude, actions and predictions. In general, believing results from the integration of ambient information with emotions and can be reinforced or modulated in a probabilistic fashion by new experiences. Although these processes occur in the subliminal realm, humans can become aware of what they believe and express it verbally. We explain how believing is interwoven with memory functions in a multifaceted fashion. Linking the typically rapid and adequate reactions of a subject to what he/she believes is enabled by working memory. Perceptions are stored in episodic memory as beneficial or aversive events, while the corresponding verbal descriptions of what somebody believes are stored in semantic memory. After recall from memory of what someone believes, personally relevant information can be communicated to other people. Thus, memory is essential for maintaining what people believe.

Moral leniency towards belief-consistent disinformation may help explain its spread on social media

The spread of false and misleading information on social media is largely dependent on human action. Understanding the factors that lead social media users to amplify (or indeed intervene in) the spread of this content is an ongoing challenge. Prior research suggests that users are not only more likely to interact with misinformation that supports their ideology or their political beliefs, they may also feel it is more acceptable to spread. However, less is known about the influence of newer, issue-specific beliefs. Two online studies explored the relationship between the degree of belief-consistency of disinformation on users' moral judgements and intentions to spread disinformation further. Four disinformation narratives were presented: disinformation that supported or undermined the UK Government's handling of COVID-19, and disinformation that minimised or maximised the perceived risk of COVID-19. A novel scale for measuring intentions to contribute to the spread of social media content was also used in study 2. Participants reported greater likelihood of spreading false material that was consistent with their beliefs. More lenient moral judgements related to the degree of belief-consistency with disinformation, even when participants were aware the material was false or misleading. These moral judgements partially mediated the relationship between belief-consistency of content and intentions to spread it further on social media. While people are concerned about the spread of disinformation generally, they may evaluate belief-consistent disinformation differently from others in a way that permits them to spread it further. As social media platforms prioritise the ordering of feeds based on personal relevance, there is a risk that users could be being presented with disinformation that they are more tolerant of.

Hubs of belief networks across sociodemographic and ideological groups

Beliefs are essential components of the human mind, as they define personal identity, integration and adaptation to social groups. Most theoretical studies suggest that beliefs are organized as structured networks: the so-called belief system. According to these studies and their empirical implementation using graph-theoretical approaches, a belief is any proposition considered as true by the respondent. In a recent contribution, we introduced a novel operationalization: a proposition is a belief if (1) it is taken to be true; and (2) the subject declares to be willing to hold it even if irrefutable evidence were hypothetically argued against it. Here, we implement this operationalization using a graph theory approach to investigate the network organization of the belief system in a sample of 108 participants, as well as the differences between key ideological (left- vs. right-wingers) and sociodemographic features (younger vs. older, female vs. male). We identified a well-coordinated network of interlocked spiritual, prosocial and nature-related beliefs, which displays a dense core of 10 hub nodes. Moreover, we observed how specific social liberalist beliefs and transcendental or individualistic/prosocial viewpoints are articulated within left- and right-wingers networks or younger and older participants. Interestingly, we observed that females tend to engage in denser belief networks than male respondents. In conclusion, our research expands tangible scientific evidence of the belief system of humans through the network study of belief reports, which in turn opens innovative ways to study belief systems in social and clinical samples.

Postdiction in Visual Awareness in Schizophrenia

Background: The mistiming of predictive thought and real perception leads to postdiction in awareness. Individuals with high delusive thinking confuse prediction and perception, which results in impaired reality testing. The present observational study investigated how antipsychotic medications and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) modulate postdiction in schizophrenia. We hypothesized that treatment reduces postdiction, especially when antipsychotics and CBT are combined. Methods: We enrolled patients with schizophrenia treated in a natural clinical setting and not in a randomized controlled trial. We followed up two schizophrenia groups matched for age, sex, education, and illness duration: patients on antipsychotics (n = 25) or antipsychotics plus CBT (n = 25). The treating clinician assigned the patients to the two groups. Participants completed a postdiction and a temporal discrimination task at weeks 0 and 12. Results: At week 0, postdiction was enhanced in patients relative to controls at a short prediction–perception time interval, which correlated with PANSS positive symptoms and delusional conviction. At week 12, postdiction was reduced in schizophrenia, especially when they received antipsychotics plus CBT. Patients with schizophrenia were also impaired on the temporal discrimination task, which did not change during the treatment. During the 12-week observational period, all PANSS scores were significantly reduced in both clinical groups, but the positive symptoms and emotional distress exhibited a more pronounced response in the antipsychotics plus CBT group. Conclusion: Perceptual postdiction is a putative neurocognitive marker of delusive thinking. Combined treatment with antipsychotics and CBT significantly ameliorates abnormally elevated postdiction in schizophrenia.

Do psychedelics change beliefs?

Renewed interest in psychedelics has reignited the debate about whether and how they change human beliefs. In both the clinical and social-cognitive domains, psychedelic consumption may be accompanied by profound, and sometimes lasting, belief changes. We review these changes and their possible underlying mechanisms. Rather than inducing de novo beliefs, we argue psychedelics may instead change the impact of affect and of others' suggestions on how beliefs are imputed. Critically, we find that baseline beliefs (in the possible effects of psychedelics, for example) might color the acute effects of psychedelics as well as longer-term changes. If we are to harness the apparent potential of psychedelics in the clinic and for human flourishing more generally, these possibilities must be addressed empirically.

Effects of Biological Determinism on Beliefs and Attitudes About Transgender People: Psychological Essentialism and Biased Assimilation

This experimental study examined the effects of biological attributions on individuals' beliefs and attitudes toward transgender people and the moderating role of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). We randomly assigned 183 Chinese university students (men: n = 85, women: n = 98) to read one of three fictitious articles. The first article suggested that transgender identity was causally linked to biology (biological determinist condition), the second one highlighted the interplay between biological and environmental factors (epigenetic condition), whereas the third article did not mention the origins of transgender identity (control condition). Consistent with the biased assimilation hypothesis, the effects of biological attributions depended on individual differences in RWA. Low-RWA participants showed higher levels of naturalness and discreteness/homogeneity beliefs about transgender identity in the biological determinist condition than those in the control condition. By contrast, high-RWA participants displayed higher levels of discreteness/homogeneity beliefs but similar levels of naturalness beliefs when they read the biological determinist message compared with the control group. Low-RWA participants showed higher levels of naturalness but similar levels of discreteness/homogeneity beliefs in the epigenetic condition compared with the control, whereas high-RWA participants exhibited lower levels of naturalness and higher levels of discreteness/homogeneity beliefs when they read the epigenetic message compared with the control group. This study also suggests that, contrary to attribution theory, presenting information regarding the biological basis of transgender identity does not necessarily lead to more positive attitudes because (a) it triggers essentialist thinking and (b) the effects of biological attributions depend on recipients' authoritarian dispositions.

Belief in Spiritual Beings Scale (BSBS): Development and Initial Validation

Abstract Although belief in spiritual beings can be considered the main characteristic of religiosity/spirituality, a scale focused on specifically assessing this construct while remaining pertinent to people of different religious/spiritual denominations-including atheists and agnostics-is not available. In two studies, we present the process of developing the Belief in Spiritual Beings Scale (BSBS) and identify its psychometric properties. Study 1 designed 24 items, which were subsequently evaluated by a panel of judges and 24 representatives of the target population. In study 2, 1788 Brazilians of different religious/spiritual denominations answered the BSBS and five other related scales. Exploratory factor analysis found a unidimensional solution for the data, with the final version of the scale consisting of 13 items. The BSBS score correlated positively-highly or moderately-with measurements of organizational religious activity, non-organizational religious activity, intrinsic religiosity, and Western and Eastern religious beliefs. The level of belief/disbelief in spiritual beings was different among contrasting groups (i.e., religious spiritualists, non-religious spiritualists, gnostic non-spiritualists or atheists, and agnostic non-spiritualists or agnostics), and incrementally predicted almost all the participants’ spiritual denominations. Given this preliminary evidence of validity, the BSBS is an interesting instrument for studies aiming to measure the general level of belief/disbelief in spiritual beings-the “soul” of religiosity/spirituality.

Beliefs and self-reported practice of footcare among persons with type II diabetes mellitus attending selected health centres in east Trinidad

Background

It has been documented that nearly 600 million people worldwide are expected to have diabetes mellitus in 2035 and that approximately 140,000 persons aged 20-69 years living with diabetes mellitus in Trinidad and Tobago. It is also indicated that patients with type II diabetes mellitus face a higher risk of diabetic foot neuropathy and foot ulcers which increase the risk of below the knee amputation in persons living with diabetes.

Purpose

The aim of this research project was to explore the beliefs related to footcare and the self-reported footcare practice of persons with type II diabetes mellitus attending selected health centres in East Trinidad.

Method

A survey was used to explore the footcare beliefs and the self-reported footcare practice of persons with type II diabetes mellitus attending selected health centres in East Trinidad (n = 87).

Results

Participants had strong belief regarding susceptibility to foot injury, strong belief regarding the seriousness of complications of foot injury, reported good footcare practice and excellent practice of overcoming barriers to performing footcare. There is a correlation between the belief regarding susceptibility to a foot injury and age (p ≤ 0.05). Also, there is a significant correlation between belief regarding susceptibility to a foot injury, seriousness of complications and self-reported footcare practices (p ≤ 0.05).

Conclusion

This study explores and describes the beliefs and self-reported practices of footcare among individuals with type II diabetes mellitus at selected health centres in East Trinidad. It supports the Health Belief Model as an effective framework for the promotion of appropriate footcare among persons with type II diabetes mellitus.

A neurocognitive model of ideological thinking

Ideological behavior has traditionally been viewed as a product of social forces. Nonetheless, an emerging science suggests that ideological worldviews can also be understood in terms of neural and cognitive principles. The article proposes a neurocognitive model of ideological thinking, arguing that ideological worldviews may be manifestations of individuals' perceptual and cognitive systems. This model makes two claims. First, there are neurocognitive antecedents to ideological thinking: the brain's low-level neurocognitive dispositions influence its receptivity to ideological doctrines. Second, there are neurocognitive consequences to ideological engagement: strong exposure and adherence to ideological doctrines can shape perceptual and cognitive systems. This article details the neurocognitive model of ideological thinking and synthesizes the empirical evidence in support of its claims. The model postulates that there are bidirectional processes between the brain and the ideological environment, and so it can address the roles of situational and motivational factors in ideologically motivated action. This endeavor highlights that an interdisciplinary neurocognitive approach to ideologies can facilitate biologically informed accounts of the ideological brain and thus reveal who is most susceptible to extreme and authoritarian ideologies. By investigating the relationships between low-level perceptual processes and high-level ideological attitudes, we can develop a better grasp of our collective history as well as the mechanisms that may structure our political futures.

Polarization of beliefs as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Spain

Spain was, together with Italy, the first European country severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. After one month of strict lockdown and eight weeks of partial restrictions, Spanish residents are expected to have revised some of their beliefs. We conducted a survey one year before the pandemic, at its outbreak and during de-escalation (N = 1706). Despite the lockdown, most respondents tolerated being controlled by authorities, and acknowledged the importance of group necessities over individual rights. However, de-escalation resulted in a belief change towards the intrusiveness of authorities and the preeminence of individual rights. Besides, transcendental beliefs-God answering prayers and the existence of an afterlife-declined after the outbreak, but were strengthened in the de-escalation. Results were strongly influenced by political ideology: the proportion of left-sided voters who saw authorities as intrusive greatly decreased, and transcendental beliefs prevailed among right-sided voters. Our results point to a polarization of beliefs based on political ideology as a consequence of the pandemic.

Beliefs: A challenge in neuropsychological disorders

INTRODUCTION

Beliefs have recently been defined as the neural product of perception of objects and events in the external world and of an affirmative internal affective state reflecting personal meaning. It is, however, undetermined in which way diseases of the brain affect these integrative processes.

METHODS

Here, the formation and updating of abnormal beliefs in cerebral disorders are described.

RESULTS

It will be shown that well-defined neuropsychological syndromes resulting from brain lesions also interfere with the neural processes that enable the formation, up-dating and communication of beliefs. Similarly, in neuropsychiatric disorders abnormal and delusional beliefs appear to be caused by altered perception and/or misattribution of aversive meaning.

CONCLUSION

Given the importance of beliefs for ordinary social behaviour, abnormal beliefs are a challenge in neuropsychological disorders.

Sexual Orientation Beliefs and Identity Development: A Person-Centered Analysis among Sexual Minorities

We conducted person-centered analysis of sexual orientation beliefs among sexual minorities to explore potential relationships between these beliefs and sexual orientation, developmental milestones, race and ethnicity, and attitudes about sexual orientation. We recruited participants (N = 416) via Amazon Mechanical Turk who completed measures of beliefs about sexual orientation and attitudes about their own sexuality, as well as assessments of mental health and age of sexual identity development milestones. We conducted a latent profile analysis and found three distinct sexual orientation belief profiles, similar to those previously observed in predominantly straight samples. We found that sexual orientation and race-ethnicity predicted belief profile membership, with the latter exhibiting the most substantial effect. Of the four identity developmental milestones tested, only the age of first same-sex attraction predicted belief profile membership. Across profiles, members differed significantly in their mean endorsement of both positive and negative attitudes regarding sexual orientation and psychological distress. Thus, the current research suggests that sexual orientation beliefs are powerful constructs in the lives of sexual minorities, with relationships to sexual orientation, other social identities, and mental health.

Differences in Beliefs About Cholesterol-Lowering Medications Among the Visegrad Group Countries: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: New cholesterol guidelines highlight more personalized risk assessments and new cholesterol-lowering drugs for people at the highest risk for cardiovascular disease. Adherence due to fear of and lack of trust in medications prevents treatment to provide better health outcomes.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to investigate the possible differences in the beliefs about the necessity and concerns regarding lipid-lowering drugs among the Visegrad Group countries.

Methods: The Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ-Specific) was used in our research. The responses of 205 Hungarian, 200 Slovak, 235 Czech, and 200 Polish participants, all taking cholesterol-lowering medications, were compared to each other.

Results: Hungarian participants' belief in the necessity of cholesterol-lowering drugs was significantly lower compared to the Slovak (P = 0.001), Czech (P = 0.037), and Polish (P < 0.001) participants. While no difference was observed between the Czech and Slovak responses (P = 0.154), both the Czech (P < 0.001) and Slovak (P = 0.006) respondents' belief regarding necessity was lower than that of the Polish. Regarding concerns, the only significant difference was observed between the Czech and the Polish respondents (P = 0.011).

Conclusions: While the beliefs about benefits (necessity) are most prominent among the Polish participants, except in comparison to Czech responses, the Visegrad Group countries do not differ considerably regarding their beliefs about the fear (concerns) of the treatment.

The Interplay Between Postsynaptic Striatal D2/3 Receptor Availability, Adversity Exposure and Odd Beliefs: A [11C]-Raclopride PET Study

BACKGROUND

Between unaffected mental health and diagnosable psychiatric disorders, there is a vast continuum of functioning. The hypothesized link between striatal dopamine signaling and psychosis has guided a prolific body of research. However, it has been understudied in the context of multiple interacting factors, subclinical phenotypes, and pre-postsynaptic dynamics.

METHOD

This work investigated psychotic-like experiences and D2/3 dopamine postsynaptic receptor availability in the dorsal striatum, quantified by in vivo [11C]-raclopride positron emission tomography, in a sample of 24 healthy male individuals. Additional mediation and moderation effects with childhood trauma and key dopamine-regulating genes were examined.

RESULTS

An inverse relationship between nondisplaceable binding potential and subclinical symptoms was identified. D2/3 receptor availability in the left putamen fully mediated the association between traumatic childhood experiences and odd beliefs, that is, inclinations to see meaning in randomness and unfounded interpretations. Moreover, the effect of early adversity was moderated by a DRD2 functional variant (rs1076560). The results link environmental and neurobiological influences in the striatum to the origination of psychosis spectrum symptomology, consistent with the social defeat and diathesis-stress models.

CONCLUSIONS

Adversity exposure may affect the dopamine system as in association with biases in probabilistic reasoning, attributional style, and salience processing. The inverse relationship between D2/3 availability and symptomology may be explained by endogenous dopamine occupying the receptor, postsynaptic compensatory mechanisms, and/or altered receptor sensitivity. This may also reflect a cognitively stabilizing mechanism in non-help-seeking individuals. Future research should comprehensively characterize molecular parameters of dopamine neurotransmission along the psychosis spectrum and according to subtype profiling.

Mistrust and misinformation: A two-component, socio-epistemic model of belief in conspiracy theories

Although conspiracy theories are endorsed by about half the population and occasionally turn out to be true, they are more typically false beliefs that, by definition, have a paranoid theme. Consequently, psychological research to date has focused on determining whether there are traits that account for belief in conspiracy theories (BCT) within a deficit model. Alternatively, a two-component, socio-epistemic model of BCT is proposed that seeks to account for the ubiquity of conspiracy theories, their variance along a continuum, and the inconsistency of research findings likening them to psychopathology. Within this model, epistemic mistrust is the core component underlying conspiracist ideation that manifests as the rejection of authoritative information, focuses the specificity of conspiracy theory beliefs, and can sometimes be understood as a sociocultural response to breaches of trust, inequities of power, and existing racial prejudices. Once voices of authority are negated due to mistrust, the resulting epistemic vacuum can send individuals “down the rabbit hole” looking for answers where they are vulnerable to the biased processing of information and misinformation within an increasingly “post-truth” world. The two-component, socio-epistemic model of BCT argues for mitigation strategies that address both mistrust and misinformation processing, with interventions for individuals, institutions of authority, and society as a whole.

Belief formation - A driving force for brain evolution

The topic of belief has been neglected in the natural sciences for a long period of time. Recent neuroscience research in non-human primates and humans, however, has shown that beliefs are the neuropsychic product of fundamental brain processes that attribute affective meaning to concrete objects and events, enabling individual goal setting, decision making and maneuvering in the environment. With regard to the involved neural processes they can be categorized as empirical, relational, and conceptual beliefs. Empirical beliefs are about objects and relational beliefs are about events as in tool use and in interactions between subjects that develop below the level of awareness and are up-dated dynamically. Conceptual beliefs are more complex being based on narratives and participation in ritual acts. As neural processes are known to require computational space in the brain, the formation of inceasingly complex beliefs demands extra neural resources. Here, we argue that the evolution of human beliefs is related to the phylogenetic enlargement of the brain including the parietal and medial frontal cortex in humans.

Complexities of human memory: relevance to anaesthetic practice

Mechanisms of anaesthetic actions on memory have largely focused on easily definable aspects of episodic memory, with emphasis on particular drug interactions on specific memory processes. However, the memory landscape of the perioperative experience includes many facets that lie outside these conceptualisations. These include patient recall of preoperative conversations, patient beliefs regarding allergies and unusual/uncommon anaesthetic events, memories of awareness, and particularly vivid dreams during anaesthesia. In no small part, memories are influenced by a patient's interpretations of events in light of their own belief systems. From the practitioner's point of view, relating fully to the patient's experience requires some framework of understanding. The purpose of this review is to highlight research over the previous decades on belief systems and their interactions with autobiographical memory, which organises episodic memories into a personally relevant narrative. As a result, memory is a set of continuously malleable processes, and is best described as a (re)constructive rather than photographic instantiation. Belief systems are separate but closely interacting processes with autobiographical memory. The interaction of a constantly evolving set of memories with belief systems can explain phenomena such as illusions, distortions, and (re)constructions of factitious events. How anaesthetics and our patient interactions influence these behaviours, and vice versa, will be important questions to explore and define with future research.

Association between beliefs about medicines and self-medication with analgesics among patients with dental pain

Self-medication with analgesics in dental pain management is a common practice as most of these medicines are available over-the-counter (OTC). The study aims to examine the relationship between beliefs about medicines and self-medication with analgesics in dental pain management in Malaysia. This cross-sectional study was conducted among conveniently sampled patients attending dental clinics, located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to assess association between self-medication with analgesics and patient's beliefs about medicines via Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire. Participants were evaluated for their self-medication practices via 4 items. Further assessment was done via Quantitative Analgesic Questionnaire (QAQ) regarding the analgesics taken. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 24, with 0.05 as level of significance. The prevalence of self-medication with analgesics was 29.4%, with 95.6% of the participants took analgesics when necessary. Participants practising self-medication for dental pain reported more positive beliefs in General-Necessity (13.04 vs. 9.98, p = 0.001) than those not practising self-medication. However, these participants had weaker beliefs in General-Harm (12.00 vs. 10.29, p = 0.006) and General-Overuse (11.38 vs. 10.31, p = 0.032) than those not practising self-medication. Participants beliefs in General-Harm (r = -0.243; p = 0.003) and General-Overuse (r = -0.203; p = 0.012) were negatively correlated with total QAQ point. The study found that individuals who practised self-medication had stronger beliefs about the benefits of medicines and weaker beliefs in viewing medicines as harmful and overused. Findings can guide public education to improve the safety aspects of self-medication with analgesics in dental practice.

Delusional Ideation, Cognitive Processes and Crime Based Reasoning

Probabilistic reasoning biases have been widely associated with levels of delusional belief ideation (Galbraith, Manktelow, & Morris, 2010; Lincoln, Ziegler, Mehl, & Rief, 2010; Speechley, Whitman, & Woodward, 2010; White & Mansell, 2009), however, little research has focused on biases occurring during every day reasoning (Galbraith, Manktelow, & Morris, 2011), and moral and crime based reasoning (Wilkinson, Caulfield, & Jones, 2014; Wilkinson, Jones, & Caulfield, 2011). 235 participants were recruited across four experiments exploring crime based reasoning through different modalities and dual processing tasks. Study one explored delusional ideation when completing a visually presented crime based reasoning task. Study two explored the same task in an auditory presentation. Study three utilised a dual task paradigm to explore modality and executive functioning. Study four extended this paradigm to the auditory modality. The results indicated that modality and delusional ideation have a significant effect on individuals reasoning about violent and non-violent crime (p < .05), which could have implication for the presentation of evidence in applied setting such as the courtroom.

Theory of Animal Mind: Human Nature or Experimental Artefact?

Are animals capable of empathy, problem-solving, or even self-recognition? Much research is dedicated to answering these questions and yet few studies have considered how humans form beliefs about animal minds. Evidence suggests that our mentalising of animals is a natural consequence of Theory of Mind (ToM) capabilities. However, where beliefs regarding animal mind have been investigated, there has been slow progress in establishing the mechanism underpinning how this is achieved. Here, we consider what conclusions can be drawn regarding how people theorise about animal minds and the different conceptual and methodological issues that might limit the accuracy of conclusions currently drawn from this work. We suggest a new empirical framework for better capturing the human theory of animal mind, which in turn has significant political and social implications.

Processes of believing: Where do they come from? What are they good for?

Despite the long scholarly discourse in Western theology and philosophy on religion, spirituality, and faith, explanations of what a belief and what believing is are still lacking. Recently, cognitive neuroscience research addressed the human capacity of believing. We present evidence suggesting that believing is a human brain function which results in probabilistic representations with attributes of personal meaning and value and thereby guides individuals’ behavior. We propose that the same mental processes operating on narratives and rituals constitute belief systems in individuals and social groups. Our theoretical model of believing is suited to account for secular and non-secular belief formation.

Processes of believing: Where do they come from? What are they good for?

Despite the long scholarly discourse in Western theology and philosophy on religion, spirituality, and faith, explanations of what a belief and what believing is are still lacking. Recently, cognitive neuroscience research addressed the human capacity of believing. We present evidence suggesting that believing is a human brain function which results in probabilistic representations with attributes of personal meaning and value and thereby guides individuals' behavior. We propose that the same mental processes operating on narratives and rituals constitute belief systems in individuals and social groups. Our theoretical model of believing is suited to account for secular and non-secular belief formation.

Analytic cognitive style, not delusional ideation, predicts data gathering in a large beads task study

INTRODUCTION

It has been proposed that deluded and delusion-prone individuals gather less evidence before forming beliefs than those who are not deluded or delusion-prone. The primary source of evidence for this "jumping to conclusions" (JTC) bias is provided by research that utilises the "beads task" data-gathering paradigm. However, the cognitive mechanisms subserving data gathering in this task are poorly understood.

METHODS

In the largest published beads task study to date (n = 558), we examined data gathering in the context of influential dual-process theories of reasoning.

RESULTS

Analytic cognitive style (the willingness or disposition to critically evaluate outputs from intuitive processing and engage in effortful analytic processing) predicted data gathering in a non-clinical sample, but delusional ideation did not.

CONCLUSION

The relationship between data gathering and analytic cognitive style suggests that dual-process theories of reasoning can contribute to our understanding of the beads task. It is not clear why delusional ideation was not found to be associated with data gathering or analytic cognitive style.

Linking unfounded beliefs to genetic dopamine availability

Unfounded convictions involving beliefs in the paranormal, grandiosity ideas or suspicious thoughts are endorsed at varying degrees among the general population. Here, we investigated the neurobiopsychological basis of the observed inter-individual variability in the propensity toward unfounded beliefs. One hundred two healthy individuals were genotyped for four polymorphisms in the COMT gene (rs6269, rs4633, rs4818, and rs4680, also known as val¹⁵⁸met) that define common functional haplotypes with substantial impact on synaptic dopamine degradation, completed a questionnaire measuring unfounded beliefs, and took part in a behavioral experiment assessing perceptual inference. We found that greater dopamine availability was associated with a stronger propensity toward unfounded beliefs, and that this effect was statistically mediated by an enhanced influence of expectations on perceptual inference. Our results indicate that genetic differences in dopaminergic neurotransmission account for inter-individual differences in perceptual inference linked to the formation and maintenance of unfounded beliefs. Thus, dopamine might be critically involved in the processes underlying one's interpretation of the relationship between the self and the world.