The bidirectional relations between affect and belief.

The Bidirectional Relations Between Affect and Belief

Matthew Tyler BodenStanford University

Howard BerenbaumUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

Whereas a majority of previous work has focused on the cognitive factors that influence beliefs, currenttheory and research suggest that affect also plays an important role. In this article, we comprehensivelydescribe the bidirectional relations between affect and belief. On the basis of our review of existingtheory and research, we develop the following three empirically derived premises. First, the need to makesense of experience and the need to regulate affect drive a reciprocal feedback loop through which affectand belief influence each other. Second, changes in affect arousal, valence, and type influence beliefcontent and conviction. Third, changes in belief content and conviction influence affect arousal, valence,and type. We discuss empirical research supporting each premise, needed empirical tests, and avenues forfuture research.

Keywords: belief, affect, emotions, emotion regulation, meaning-making

Governments should not interfere with free-market economies;life after death will be better than life now; there is no inherentmeaning to human life. True or not, most people would agree thatthese three propositional statements are examples of a conceptlabeled belief. Beliefs are fundamental aspects of human mentallife that help people understand themselves and the world aroundthem, and they powerfully influence how people live their lives.

Whereas a majority of previous theorizing and research hasfocused on the cognitive factors that influence and are influencedby beliefs (e.g., knowledge; see Wyer & Albarracin, 2005), a smallbut growing body of theory and research suggests that affect andaffective processes also influence beliefs (e.g., Albarracin &Kumkale, 2003; Frijda, Manstead, & Bem, 2000). However, mod-els, theories, and hypotheses describing the relations betweenaffect and mental representations, such as beliefs, tend to beunidirectional and limited in scope (e.g., Frijda et al., 2000).Furthermore, the empirical research that directly addresses affectand beliefs tends to be scattered across several areas of psycho-logical research (e.g., delusions, moral reasoning). What we thinkis needed is a comprehensive account of the bidirectional relationsbetween affect and belief that ties together and then goes beyondprevious theorizing and empirical research, including that describ-ing the relations between affect and concepts similar to beliefs(e.g., judgments, decisions). We describe such an account in thisarticle.

Overview

Our analysis comprehensively describes how changes in the twodefining features of belief, content and conviction (i.e., “beliefevolution”), contribute to changes in affect and vice versa.Changes in affect consist of changes in the arousal, valence, andtype of emotion and mood. In this article, we consider changes intype and valence of affect together, as we propose they havesimilar bidirectional relations with belief change. We depict thebidirectional relation between affect and belief as a reciprocalfeedback loop through which affect and belief influence each otherin an ongoing manner. We note that although belief and affectoften change through processes outside the control of an individ-ual, both belief and affect can be purposefully modulated (e.g.,Garratt, Ingram, Rand, & Sawalani, 2007; Gross, 1998; Kwon &Oei, 2003). We hypothesize that both active, deliberate beliefchange and passive, reflexive belief change can modulate affect.Similarly, both active, deliberate affect change and passive, reflex-ive affect change can modulate belief.

On the basis of our review of existing theory and research, wehave developed three empirically derived premises that character-ize the bidirectional relations between affect and belief. First, theneed to make sense of experience and the need to regulate affectdrive the feedback loop through which affect and belief influenceeach other, thereby leading to belief evolution. Second, changes inaffect arousal and valence/type influence belief content and con-viction. Third, changes in belief content and conviction influenceaffect arousal and valence/type.

As we discuss in greater detail below, experiences, broadlydefined, are the sole input into the feedback loop between affectand belief. Furthermore, we propose that all known and as yetundiscovered factors that influence the bidirectional relationsbetween affect and belief do so via their impact on the feedbackloop.

That changes in belief would motivate and be motivated by theneeds to make sense of experience and to regulate affect in valueddirections is in agreement with previous theories. For example,Kruglanski (1980) posited that belief formation and change func-tion to accurately reflect and make sense of the world and ongoing

Matthew Tyler Boden, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sci-ences, Stanford University; Howard Berenbaum, Department of Psychol-ogy, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

Preparation of this article was supported by National Institute of MentalHealth Grants MH071969 and MH62552. We thank Dolores Albarracin,Gerald Clore, James Gross, and Brent Roberts for helpful critiques of draftsof this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to MatthewTyler Boden, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, StanfordUniversity, 401 Quarry Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304. E-mail: [email protected]

Review of General Psychology © 2010 American Psychological Association2010, Vol. 14, No. 3, 227–239 1089-2680/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0019898

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experience, and Wyer and Albarracin (2005) posited that beliefsare a construction of oneself and the world that help with effectivecoping with life situations and the living of a happy and successfullife. We hypothesize that the more relevant a belief is to anindividual’s needs, goals, and concerns, the more likely that beliefis to influence and to be influenced by affect. Because the rele-vance of different beliefs to an individual’s needs, goals, andconcerns will vary, we expect affect to influence and be influencedby different beliefs held by the same individual to varying degreesand in multiple ways. Similarly, because an individual’s needs,goals, and concerns will change over time, we expect that overtime affect will influence and be influenced by the same belief tovarying degrees and in multiple ways. This being said, we describehow affect and belief are related in those instances in which theydo influence each other.

Affect and Affect Change

The defining features of affect include antecedents, re-sponses, and a link between the antecedents and responses (see,e.g., Clore, Gasper, & Garvin, 2001; Clore, Storbeck, Robinson,& Centerbar, 2005; Gross & Thompson, 2007). Antecedentsrefer to the causes of affect, which are situations that arerelevant to the needs, goals, and concerns of an individual(Frijda, 1986). Situations include cognitive representations of(a) the situation itself, (b) its meaning for the individual, (c)when and how the individual can respond to it, and (d) evalu-ations of the desirability of the outcomes of the situation.Appraisals are the evaluative meaning of a situation in terms ofan individual’s needs, goals, and concerns in terms of dimen-sions such as intrinsic pleasantness and goal significance. Af-fect is elicited by situations deemed significant to these con-cerns (Frijda, 1986; Scherer, 1999). We note that affect mayresult from situations that are remembered, currently experi-enced, or anticipated. For example, nervousness can result froma past experience (e.g., memory of a car accident), and regretcan result from an anticipated experience (e.g., losing money atgambling). The concern relevance of a situation is the directantecedent of an affective response. Affective responses aremultifaceted, whole-body responses involving loosely inte-grated changes in subjective experience (i.e., feeling), behavior,and central and peripheral physiology (e.g., changes to auto-nomic nervous system and neuroendocrine systems; Mauss,Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005). Affective an-tecedents and responses are linked in a manner that allows forflexible updating of responses.

Similar to several emotions theorists (e.g., Clore et al., 2001;Gross & Thompson, 2007), we think of affect as a superordinatecategory that includes two specific states that are relevant to ouranalysis: emotions and moods. Affect may be emotion-like if it hassalient causes, is shorter lasting, is more intense, or biases behaviormore than cognition; or it is mood-like if it does not have salientcauses, is longer lasting, is less intense, or biases cognition morethan behavior (see Clore, Schwarz, & Conway, 1994; Davidson etal., 1994; Russell, 2003). As we discuss in more detail below, weposit that the relations between beliefs and emotions and thosebetween beliefs and moods share some similarities, but in manycases are different.

A number of theories and models have found that affect can beparsed into at least two orthogonal dimensions (e.g., Russell, 2003;Russell & Feldman Barrett, 1999; Watson & Tellegen, 1985). Thefirst dimension, valence, refers to the pleasantness, goodness, orpositivity of a discrete affective episode. The second dimension,arousal, refers to how activating or arousing a discrete affectiveepisode is. As these dimensions are orthogonal, affects can haveany combination of values from these two dimensions, such as apleasant and deactivated affect (e.g., peace, contentment), an un-pleasant and activated affect (e.g., terror), a pleasant and activatedaffect (e.g., joy), and an unpleasant and deactivated affect (e.g.,sadness). Affect can also be parsed into different types (e.g., fear,anger, jealousy, happiness), which differ in their antecedents,responses, evolutionary function, and neurological substrates(Ekman, 1992; Izard, 1993; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). In thisarticle, we consider changes in type and valence of affect together,as we propose that they have similar bidirectional relations withbelief change. Throughout this article, we refer to affect change aschanges in arousal and valence/type.

Belief and Belief Change

Most, if not all, psychological definitions of beliefs (e.g.,Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) share twofeatures: (a) content (i.e., a mental representation of a particularobject) and (b) conviction (i.e., to hold a belief one must beconvinced of the existence of the object). First, beliefs are aboutobjects (e.g., people, places, things; current, past, and futureevents) that are mentally represented. The content of a belief isgained through experience. As one can potentially mentallyrepresent any experience, beliefs can be about any experience,in part or in total, from reading about the existence of aliens(e.g., “Aliens do not exist”), to seeing a giraffe (e.g., “Giraffesare yellow with black spots”), to contemplating how one mightdie (e.g., “I will die by gunshot”), to attending a church service(e.g., “God loves all people equally”).

Second, to believe in something (i.e., to hold a belief), onemust be convinced above the level of chance that the objectexists or does not exist. We use the term conviction to refer towhat Ajzen and Fishbein (1975) call subjective probability, andwhat others label units of confidence or certainty (Wyer &Albarracin, 2005). Although there is some debate about whetherbelief conviction is dichotomous (i.e., you believe or you do notbelieve) or continuous (i.e., you believe with some level ofprobability), there can be no doubt that belief conviction can bemeasured dimensionally and dimensional measures of beliefconviction have utility (Appelbaum, Robbins, & Vesselinov,2004; Inzlicht, McGregor, Hirsh, & Nash, 2009; Sharp et al.,1996; Strauss, 1969). For example, it has been found that beliefconviction varies continuously over time and context, and con-tinuous measures of belief conviction are systematically relatedto factors ranging from emotional arousal (Sharp et al., 1996) toanterior cingulate activity (Inzlicht et al., 2009). We proposethat conviction is both a defining feature and a dimension in thata certain level of conviction is needed to have a belief. In otherwords, although it can widely vary, without conviction regard-ing the existence of the belief object, one does not have a belief

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(also see Gilbert, 1991).1 We propose that thinking that theexistence of the belief object is merely possible (i.e., not beingconvinced one way or the other) is to not have a belief, butinstead to have an interpretation that may become more or lessconvincing through further experience(s).

Our definition of beliefs covers equally well all types of mentalrepresentations about which individuals can vary in their level ofconviction. Thus, our definition of beliefs is relevant to mentalrepresentations such as opinions, expectancies, values, and implicittheories. Furthermore, our definition is viable regardless ofwhether beliefs are (a) online constructions formed at each instantthe existence of a belief object is considered, or (b) stable repre-sentations stored in memory and continually updated through theintegration of information gained from new experiences (see Wyer& Albarracin, 2005).

Belief change can occur at any time during or following anexperience. Belief change consists of changes in conviction orcontent of a given belief. Changes in belief conviction includeincreases in conviction leading to strengthened beliefs and de-creases in conviction leading to weakened beliefs. Beliefs arerejected when conviction decreases to a level that is near but notalways at the level of chance (e.g., one might consider a particularbelief “rejected” when conviction is slightly greater than the levelof chance). Beliefs form when conviction in the existence ornonexistence of a belief object is increased, either gradually orimmediately (see Gilbert, 1991, for a related discussion). Changesin belief content include expansion or revision of content. Beliefexpansion refers to the incorporation of new information into thebelief structure, leading to increasingly complicated beliefs andnetworks in which they are embedded (e.g., Abelson, 1986; Ken-dler, Glazer, & Morgenstern, 1983). For example, after living inPalo Alto, California, for a year, one’s belief “The suburbs areboring” may be revised to “Suburbs in southern California areboring, but suburbs in northern California are hip.” Belief contentis revised when information is substituted into an existing beliefobject. For example, the belief “Free-market economies are bestleft unregulated” may be revised to “Free-market economies dobest when regulated.”2

Distinguishing Beliefs From Related Concepts

Beliefs and other representations (e.g., knowledge, inferences,judgments, interpretations, attitudes) share several similarities(e.g., all mental representations can vary in their momentary ac-cessibility; Kruglanski, 1989). We posit that our analysis is appli-cable to all mental representations that, by definition, have contentand about which individuals can vary in their level of conviction.This includes inferences, judgments, and all mentally representedexplanations of experience. Inferences can be defined as an under-standing of the implications of knowledge3 for a particular aspectof a situation, and judgment can be defined as an overt or implicitexpression of an inference, expressed verbally or as ratings alonga scale (Wyer & Albarracin, 2005). Mentally represented expla-nations of experience include interpretations, attributions, hypoth-eses, thoughts, and ideas. Although these mental representationscan be thought of as including a certain level of conviction in theexistence of the object of the mental representation, the level ofconviction with which one believes in the existence of the object

will always be greater than the level with which one interprets theexistence of the object.

We note that beliefs have been extensively studied by psychol-ogists in terms of their relations to attitudes (e.g., Ajzen & Fish-bein, 1975; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1972). There is no consensusdefinition of attitudes, although many would agree that attitudes (a)represent a summary evaluation of an object in terms of dimen-sions such as good to bad, like to dislike, and harmful to beneficial;and (b) have affective, cognitive, and behavioral components(Ajzen & Fishbein, 2000; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Zanna &Rempel, 1988). Prominent theories of attitudes include those thatstrongly distinguish belief and attitude constructs, positing thatbeliefs are the informational basis by which attitudes form andevolve (e.g., Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975), and those that do notstrongly distinguish belief and attitude constructs, and by defini-tion treat beliefs as one of several components of attitudes (ac-cording to these theories, affect and behavior are considered non-cognitive components of attitudes; e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;Zanna & Rempel, 1988). Consistent with previous researchers(Kruglanski & Stroebe, 2005; Wyer & Albarracin, 2005), weassume that the primary distinctions between attitudes and beliefsare that (a) attitudes are always evaluative in nature, whereasbeliefs are not necessarily so; (b) beliefs are always defined byconviction, whereas attitudes are not necessarily so (however, seeGross, Holtz, & Miller, 1995); and (c) a subset of beliefs can beverified with external criteria, whereas attitudes are not verifiablein this regard (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993).

Previous Theories and Models

A large number of models and theories of affect (see Davidson,Scherer, & Goldsmith, 2003, for a review) and models and theories

1 We hypothesize that (a) the relative distribution of belief convictionvaries by specific belief, with some beliefs being represented dichoto-mously and others represented continuously; and (b) there are individualdifferences in the thresholds people use to decide at what point theycategorically believe versus do not believe something. Statistical proce-dures such as taxometric analyses (Meehl, 1999, 2004) and latent classanalysis (Langeheine & Rost, 1988) might be used to investigate thesehypotheses. These analyses also have the potential to investigate thepossibility that the dimension of belief conviction contributes to a cate-gorical distinction.

2 We agree with Boden and Gross (2010) that another type of beliefchange occurs when beliefs change from a deactivated state, in which theyare not consciously attended to, to an activated state, in which they areconsciously attended to. For example, a terse interaction with an individualof a different ethnic/racial background may lead to the activation ofinitially deactivated and unconscious stereotypes. However, we posit thatchange in activation is not a change in the belief structure itself, but insteadis a cognitive act, as would be reading a book or attempting to remembersomeone’s phone number. The act of activating and attending to a beliefcan influence affect, just as any other act has the potential to influenceaffect, and affect can influence the act of activating and attending to abelief, just as affect can influence any other form of behavior. We do notinclude belief activation in our discussion as we are concerned with thebidirectional relations between affect and belief structure (i.e., content andconviction).

3 Consistent with common-sense and philosophical conceptualizations,knowledge can be defined as mentally represented information gained fromsubjective experience.

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of belief (see Wyer & Albarracin, 2005, for a review) have beenproposed by previous scholars. A majority of models and theoriesof affect do not describe the relations between affect and mentalrepresentations of any kind, or do so indirectly. Similarly, a ma-jority of models and theories of belief focus only on the cognitivefactors that underlie and influence belief change. We do not reviewthese theories and models here given that our focus is on thebidirectional relations between affect and belief. We note that veryfew theories and models have been proposed to describe theserelations, and arguably none describe these relations in as com-prehensive a manner as we do here. In this section, we brieflyreview existing theories and models that are relevant to our anal-ysis.

Affect-Infusion Model, Affect-as-Information Theory,Affective Forecasting Theories

Affect-infusion (for a review, see Forgas, 2003), affect-as-information (for a review, see Clore et al., 2001), and affectiveforecasting (for a review, see Wilson & Gilbert, 2005) theories andmodels describe principles by which affect influences informationprocessing, which can be applied to understand belief change. Theaffect-infusion model (see Forgas, 2003) proposes that emotionsinfluence information processing such that decisions and judg-ments are infused with emotion and so become mood congruent.This occurs in two ways: (a) through elaborate emotional process-ing attributable to such factors as unrestricted cognitive capacity,and (b) through limited emotional processing attributable to suchfactors as lack of knowledge regarding the situation (see Forgas,2003). In the former instance, emotions contribute to greateraccessibility of affectively primed information. By indirectly fa-cilitating access to affectively charged cognitions, emotion is in-fused into resulting decisions and judgments (Bower & Forgas,2001), making them mood congruent. In the latter instance, emo-tions serve as a heuristic, as described next.

According to affective forecasting theories (see Wilson & Gil-bert, 2005) and affect-as-information theory (see Schwarz, 1990),emotions serve as information or heuristics that people assess tovarying degrees when processing information. Affective forecast-ing theories describe how expected emotions serve as a heuristicthat guides current judgments and decisions, which is supported bystudies that have found that people directly assess their futureemotional state when making decisions and judgments (e.g.,Mellers, Schwartz, Ho, & Ritov, 1997). Affect-as-informationtheories describe how current or immediate emotions influenceoften unrelated judgments or decisions. Supporting these theoriesis a great number of studies generally finding that emotions that areactivated in one situation typically influence judgments in anotherunrelated situation (e.g., Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Immediateemotions that both are and are not explicitly related to a givensituation or contemplated serve as information that guides infor-mation processing (e.g., Lerner & Keltner, 2000; Schwarz, 1990).

In describing how affect influences information processing (i.e.,resulting in mental representations such as judgments and deci-sions), affect-infusion, affect-as-information, and affective fore-casting theories and models all support the link from affect tobelief. On the basis of the affect-as-information theory, Clore andGasper (2000) have posited, and to some extent have found sup-port for, several hypotheses regarding the specific ways by which

affect influences belief. We incorporate two of these general prin-ciples in our core premises. First, affect provides immediate,attention-grasping information about experiences. This informa-tion is experienced as being relevant to current perceptual andmental content, which may eventually serve as the objects ofnewly generated beliefs or as evidence that confirms or discon-firms already-held beliefs. Second, because affect is directly ex-perienced, it is self-evident and believable. In other words, belief-consistent and belief-inconsistent affect may serve as confirmatoryand disconfirmatory evidence of already-held beliefs, respectively.Moods, which lack an object and whose informational value isunconstrained, may lend themselves as evidence to any associatedbelief, whereas emotions will lend themselves as evidence tobeliefs that are directly related to the object of emotions.

AREA Model

Wilson and Gilbert (2008) have proposed an empirically sup-ported model of affective adaptation. At its core, the model,labeled AREA for Attend (A), React (R), Explain (E), and Adapt(A), posits that people (a) attend to self-relevant, unexplainedevents; (b) react to these events with affect; (c) are motivated toexplain and understand these events; and (d) emotionally adapt tothese events by reaching an understanding or finding an adequateexplanation of these events. Wilson and Gilbert posit that peopleare motivated to attend to and explain self-relevant events that arepoorly understood, in part because they have affective reactions tothem. Through explaining these events (e.g., determining theircauses and understanding their consequences), they adapt to themand have weak affective responses to the events when they reoc-cur.

There is notable overlap between Wilson and Gilbert’s (2008)model and our analysis, as both posit that people attend to andemotionally react to self-relevant, unexplained events, and aremotivated to explain and understand these events. In addition, ouranalysis incorporates the idea that explanations (i.e., beliefs) in-fluence affect such that emotional adaptation (aka regulated emo-tion) is one possible output of the reciprocal feedback loop be-tween the two. We therefore use research supporting Wilson andGilbert’s model in our own analysis.

The main difference between the AREA model and our analysisis the primary foci: Our analysis focuses on the bidirectionalrelations between affect and one particular explanation of experi-ence, beliefs. In doing so, we explain phenomena that are left outof the AREA model, such as how affect arousal and valence/typeinfluence and are influenced by belief content and conviction.Another difference is that the AREA model and our analysis takea somewhat different view of the motivations that drive the recip-rocal relations between affect and explanations of experience. TheAREA model posits that the motive of explaining or understandingparticular emotion-eliciting events is itself driven by the motive ofadapting to emotional experience. Our analysis posits that on manyoccasions one of these motivations may drive the reciprocal feed-back loop in the relative absence of the second motivation (e.g.,one may be motivated to make sense of a morose mood withoutany corresponding motivation to reduce that mood).


Appraisal Theories of Emotions

Theoretical support for the link from belief to affect comes fromseveral appraisal theories of emotions (e.g., Lazarus, 1991; Re-isenzein, 2001). Consistent with philosophers who have describedbeliefs as being emotional states or having emotional aspects (e.g.,Hume, 1739/1969), several influential appraisal theories have pos-ited that beliefs are one of the most important influences onappraisal processes, and thereby determine when and what type ofemotion will be elicited in response to environmental contingen-cies (Lazarus, 1991).4 Beliefs are sometimes proximal concernsthat orient individuals to the personal salience of a particularsituation and the meaning of events, as assessed through theappraisal process (Frijda, 1986; Frijda et al., 2000). Beliefs canalso influence appraisal processes by influencing other concerns,needs, and goals that predispose individuals to experience emo-tions. For example, beliefs can influence what goals are salient andpursued by individuals, which in turn predispose individuals toexperience emotions in particular situations (see Carver & Scheier,1998, for a discussion of the relation between goals and affect).

Not only do beliefs influence emotions, but they do so in aconceptually and temporally broad manner. Beliefs often have along temporal duration. During the long time in which they areheld, beliefs have the potential to influence many discrete appraisalprocesses. In this manner, a single belief can influence manyemotions across time. Further increasing the breadth of their in-fluence on emotions, any specific belief can predispose an indi-vidual to emotionally respond to a great number of situations (e.g.,the belief “God exists” will lead to anger when an individual isconfronted by an atheist and serenity when that individual’s childis diagnosed with cancer). In this manner, all beliefs have thepotential to influence the generation of many different types ofemotional events, and their influence is conceptually broad. Weuse research on appraisal theories of emotions to specify the natureof the link from belief to affect.

Models and Theories of Delusions

Researchers studying delusional beliefs have proposed a set oftheories and models that are relevant to our analysis. Delusions areunfalsifiable, affect laden beliefs that deviate from the ordinary,have less evidence or less convincing evidence to support theirexistence, and are often distressing and bizarre (e.g., “I was bornon the planet Jupiter and brought to Earth by aliens”; Berenbaum,Kerns, & Raghavan, 2000; Leeser & O’Donohue, 1999). Varyingdegrees of empirical evidence support myriad models of delusionalbelief formation and maintenance, some of which directly addressthe influence of emotions on delusions. Similar to our own anal-ysis, a subset of models (e.g., Freeman, Garety, Kuipers, Fowler,& Bebbington, 2002; Garety, Kuipers, Fowler, Freeman, & Beb-bington, 2001; Maher, 1974, 1988) posits that delusions are mo-tivated by the need to make sense of experience, and by doing so,regulate emotions in valued directions. For example, a currentmodel of the positive symptoms of psychosis (Garety et al., 2001)proposes that delusions develop as follows: (a) A triggering event(the model does not specify the nature of the triggering event) ina person vulnerable to experiencing delusions leads to a disruptionof cognitive processes (e.g., difficulties with self-monitoring ofintentions and behaviors), (b) these cognitive disturbances lead to

conscious anomalous experiences (e.g., auditory hallucinations)and emotional arousal, (c) the emotional arousal influences thecontent of the anomalous experiences, (d) hypotheses are gener-ated regarding the cause of these anomalous experiences, (e) thesehypotheses are influenced by cognitive biases (e.g., jumping toconclusions bias) and the social–cognitive background of theindividual (e.g., inner city birth and rearing), and (f) delusionsresult from the acceptance of hypotheses that posit an externalcause of the anomalous experience(s) and thereby reduce emo-tional arousal.

One of our core premises proposes that, like delusions, beliefchange is an adaptive process that is motivated by one or both ofthe need (a) to make sense of experience and (b) to regulateemotions in valued directions. Furthermore, we apply and gener-alize the hypothesis (see Maher, 1974, 1988) that delusions arereinforced by a reduction in unpleasant emotional arousal thataccompanies the understanding of the anomalous experience. Wepropose that all beliefs have the potential to be reinforced byregulation of emotions in valued directions (also see Boden &Gross, 2010).

The Bidirectional Relations Between Affect and Belief

There are three core premises that make up our analysis. First,the need to make sense of experience and the need to regulateaffect drive the feedback loop through which affect and beliefinfluence each other, thereby leading to belief evolution. Second,changes in affect arousal and valence/type influence belief contentand conviction. Third, changes in belief content and convictioninfluence affect arousal and valence/type. In this section, we de-scribe each of these premises in turn, supporting empirical evi-dence, and needed empirical tests. We include in our description ofthe first premise a discussion of inputs into the feedback loop,filtered experiences.

First Premise

The need to make sense of experience and the need to regulateaffect drive the feedback loop through which affect and beliefinfluence each other, thereby leading to belief evolution.

We depict the bidirectional relations between affect and beliefas a continual feedback loop, through which changes in affectcontribute to changes in belief and vice versa. A core premise ofour analysis is that this feedback loop is driven by the dual motivesof making sense of experience and regulating affect in valueddirections. This premise follows from theories stating that (a)making sense of one’s experiences is a central need and process inhuman life (e.g., Hermans, 1996; Singer, 2004); (b) people con-tinually generate explanations for experiences (Weiner, 1985;Piaget, 1952); (c) people respond with affect to events that arerelated to their needs, concerns, and goals (see Frijda, 1986;Lazarus, 1991); and (d) people perform actions, such as changingtheir beliefs, to regulate their emotions in valued directions (seeBoden & Gross, 2010). These motives may act in conjunction

4 It has also been proposed that different types of emotional experiencesresult, in part, from different belief patterns that predispose one to expe-rience emotions (Lazarus, 1991).


when affect signals that an experience or the affect itself needs tobe explained (through belief change) in order to regulate affect.These motives may also act independently. For example, an indi-vidual may increase her conviction in the belief that “Heavenawaits those who have faith” solely to downregulate anxiety sheexperiences while watching news of a strong earthquake in anothercountry. Therefore, each motive is sufficient to drive the feedbackloop between affect and belief.

We characterize the feedback loop as having no beginning andno end. However, at times it can be suspended when a belief hasevolved that adequately makes sense of experience or regulatesaffect in valued directions. At times, the feedback loop will besuspended when emotions are successfully regulated in valueddirections regardless of how well the belief has explained experi-ence (see Boden & Gross, 2010; also see Wilson & Gilbert, 2008,for a related discussion). In other words, the feedback loop will besuspended when affect has been regulated for short-term hedonicor long-term instrumental goals (see Tamir, 2009) through theevolution of a particular belief. An example of the former would bean increase in conviction in the belief “God is watching over mychild” by the parent of a child diagnosed with cancer for thepurpose of increasing serenity. Alternatively, a soldier on a mis-sion to find and kill enemy soldiers might upregulate his anger forthe instrumental purpose of increasing courage and motivation. Todo this, he might increase conviction in the belief “The people whokilled my friend deserve to die.” The feedback loop is suspended,rather than ends or terminates, because every new experience hasthe potential to reactivate the needs that drive the feedback loop forany particular belief–affect pairing. For example, a new experiencemay contradict an existing belief, thereby leading to unpleasantaffect and the motivation to reconcile the experience and the beliefto downregulate the unpleasant affect. The interplay of affect andbelief will lead to newly generated beliefs or existing beliefs thathave been changed.

The feedback loop does not presuppose that affect comes beforebeliefs or vice versa. Instead, we believe it is more accurate todescribe the feedback loop as a continuous process in which affectand beliefs are continuously influencing each other and changinggiven new experiences. In fact, beliefs that result from the feed-back loop will continuously be influenced by new experiences thatserve as inputs to the feedback loop, which can in turn lead toincreases and decreases in belief conviction and the expansion ofthe beliefs (see Harmon-Jones, 2001; Lange & Houran, 1998). Wepropose that all known and as yet undiscovered factors that influ-ence the bidirectional relations between affect and belief do so viatheir impact on the feedback loop (see Future Directions sectionfor an example).

Experiences, broadly defined, are the sole input into the feed-back loop. We broadly conceptualize experience as any event thatprovides information that can be mentally represented. As such, abroad array of single events (e.g., falling of your roof, hiking in themountains) and series of events (e.g., learning algebra, attendingTai Chi classes) can be construed as experiences. Experiences canalso include contemplating, deducing, extrapolating from, andassociating information one has already acquired. We posit that allremembered, current, and anticipated experiences have the poten-tial to serve as inputs to the feedback loop.

As our analysis is exclusively concerned with the bidirectionalrelations between affect and belief, we focus on those experiences

that generate greater motivations to make sense of experience orregulate affect in valued directions. Theory and empirical evidencesuggest that these motives are activated to a greater extent thegreater the degree to which an experience is self-relevant (e.g.,having one’s own family killed by a tornado) and difficult tounderstand because it is novel or unexpected (Clore & Gasper,2000; Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This is because self-relevant andpoorly understood experiences tend to elicit explanations to agreater extent and tend to amplify affect and physiological arousal(e.g., Mellers, Schwartz, & Ritov, 1999; Ortony, Clore, & Collins,1988; Price & Geer, 1972; Rescorla & Wagner, 1972). As affectsignals the occurrence of an important event that must be under-stood to be properly dealt with, one will be motivated to makesense of the experience and regulate affect in valued directions.For example, difficulty finishing a work assignment to meet adeadline may lead to intense frustration and a search for meaning(e.g., “What accounts for this difficulty?”) when this experience isclosely related to career goals (i.e., self-relevant). Many experi-ences will not contribute to an affect–belief interaction becausethey will not motivate an individual to try to further understandthem or to regulate affect in valued directions.

We propose that all experiences are filtered through already-held mental representations (e.g., attitudes, beliefs; Cartwright-Hatton & Wells, 1997; Papageorgiou & Wells, 2003) before en-gaging the feedback loop. The filter influences the degree to whichexperiences are difficult to understand and contribute to affectarousal. Similar to cognitive consistency theories (e.g., Festinger,1957),5 we posit that a greater search for meaning will result fromlarge discrepancies between currently held mental representationsand the information provided by a given experience. For example,the belief “I am a righteous person” may be discrepant from one’sexperience of continually exploiting others. This discrepancy canresult in intense affect and a search for meaning to resolve thediscrepancy and reduce unpleasant affect. We posit that in someinstances currently held mental representations may be consistentwith experience and still contribute to affect and a search formeaning. This will occur primarily when mental representationsare reinforced by consistent experiences, thereby increasing un-pleasant affect. For example, frustration experienced while waitingfor the results of an important medical test may be increased whenconsidering a consistent belief (e.g., “Western medicine cannotcure what ails me”). This may lead to a further search for meaningto downregulate the unpleasant affect. We note that the extent towhich the feedback loop is engaged is completely dependent onthe experience and filter.

Empirical Support for the First Premise

We note that although the premises in our analysis are solidlygrounded in psychological theory, supporting empirical evidencetends to be limited, indirect, and general. There are several factorsthat likely account for this state of affairs, the most prominentbeing that the relations between affect and belief have tended tointerest researchers only insofar as they can provide an understand-

5 Cognitive dissonance theory posits that people are motivated to elim-inate discrepancies between cognitions to reduce resulting unpleasantaffect (Festinger, 1957).


ing of other phenomena of interest (e.g., political ideology). There-fore, more direct, specific tests of our premises are needed. Theclearest, direct support for the first premise would come fromresults showing that (a) the influences of affect on belief and ofbelief on affect are greatest under conditions in which there is astrong need to make sense of experience or regulate affect invalued directions, and (b) belief and affect do not influence eachother under conditions in which neither of these needs is activated.Clear support would also come from findings showing that theevolution of a particular belief is suspended (i.e., the feedback loopbetween affect and belief is suspended) when these needs aresatiated.

Because studies demonstrating the above effects have not beenconducted, we review several lines of indirect empirical supportfor the first premise. First, evidence showing that beliefs fulfill theneeds that drive the feedback loop suggests that belief change itselfis driven by these needs. There is no doubt that beliefs function inpart to make sense of experience (e.g., see Kruglanski, 1980).There is also some evidence that beliefs function to regulate affectin valued directions (Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006; Osarchuk &Tatz, 1973). For example, in a series of related studies, it wasfound that beliefs in supernatural existence (e.g., the existence ofGod) and agency (e.g., efficacy of divine intervention) were in-creased among those for whom their mortality was made salientversus those for whom their mortality was not made salient(Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006). We can interpret these results asevidence that increases in belief conviction regulate affect bypreventing the generation or enhancement of fear that accompaniessituations in which mortality is made salient. Second, research oncognitive consistency theory has shown that discrepancies in beliefor in beliefs and behaviors give rise to unpleasant affect, which inturn contributes to further belief change (e.g., Sherman & Gorkin,1980; Zimbardo, 1960). These results can be interpreted as show-ing that motivations to make sense of discrepant beliefs and beliefsor behaviors, and thereby downregulate unpleasant affect, contrib-ute to belief change. Third, self-relevant, poorly understood expe-riences generate and increase affective arousal (e.g., Mellers et al.,1999; Price & Geer, 1972). Furthermore, unexplained affect isunpleasant (e.g., Zimbardo, LaBerge, & Butler, 1993), and peoplecontinually generate attributions to explain their affect (seeWeiner, 1985, for a review). Taken together, we use a functionalistaccount to interpret these results as showing that beliefs evolve inthe service of the needs to make sense of experience and toregulate affect through belief change.

Second Premise

Changes in affect arousal and valence/type influence beliefcontent and conviction.

We distinguish between two types of changes in affect. The first,affect arousal, provides an attention-capturing signal regarding thearousal or the experiences that contribute to the arousal (Clore &Gasper, 2000). The second, affect valence/type, guides attention torelevant stimuli and influences how these stimuli are processed.Therefore, in relation to beliefs, affect arousal will signal that thereexists a stimulus that has the potential to influence beliefs, whereasaffect valence/type will determine the particular stimuli that influ-

ence a given belief, along with how these stimuli do so. Wedescribe in more detail how this occurs.

We posit that changes in affect arousal provide an attention-capturing signal. This signal triggers a motivation to make sense ofthe experience or to regulate the arousal, such as through beliefformation and change. Attention may be focused on the affectitself, its causes (i.e., the particular stimuli that gave rise to theaffect itself), or associated stimuli (e.g., when sad, one may attendto a homeless individual, a memory of a deceased loved one, orthoughts of an impending end to a relationship, although none ofthese stimuli caused the sadness). In general, more intense arousalwill motivate one to make sense of experience or regulate arousalto a greater extent. For example, an increase in one’s affectivearousal while walking through a forest may signal a need toregulate the arousal or to make sense of the arousal and experience.These needs may be fulfilled through the formation or change ofbeliefs regarding the arousal or experience and associated stimuli.

We posit that changes in affect valence/type will influence bothbelief content and conviction by determining the particular stimulithat influence a given belief, along with how these stimuli do so.In regard to the former, belief conviction will be influenced byaffect and associated stimuli that will serve as confirmatory ordisconfirmatory evidence. Affect is directly experienced and istherefore self-evident and believable (Clore & Gasper, 2000). Inthis manner, affect itself may serve as direct evidence that confirmsor disconfirms a given belief. Directly following from previousresearch (Centerbar, Schnall, Clore, & Garvin, 2008), affect that iscongruent with a given explanation of experience (i.e., explana-tion-consistent affective state) may serve as evidence for thevalidity of that explanation and strengthen it. Alternatively, affectthat is incongruent with a given explanation of experience (i.e.,explanation-inconsistent affective state) may serve as evidencethat contradicts and weakens it. In this manner, one’s belief that“forest spirits are beneficent” may be strengthened because it helpsto explain positive affect associated with the experience of walkingthrough the forest or regulates affect in valued directions. Alter-natively, the belief that “forest spirits are malevolent” will beweakened because this interpretation does not adequately explainthe pleasant affect and experience or regulate affect in valueddirections. Besides directly serving as evidence for or against agiven belief, affect may guide attention to object-relevant infor-mation that itself serves as evidence that confirms or disconfirmsalready-held beliefs. When lost in the forest, the fear one experi-ences will guide attention to information (e.g., the ominous sound-ing wind; the creeping wisps of fog) that disconfirms the belief thatbeneficent spirits dwell in the forest. Moods, whose informationalvalue is unconstrained because of their lack of objects, may haveespecially pronounced effects in this regard as they will lendthemselves as evidence to any associated belief.

Research finding valence effects on information processing(e.g., Forgas, 1994) lead us to propose that pleasant and unpleasantaffect will differentially influence how beliefs are influenced bystimuli. Pleasant affect will contribute to the strengthening ofconviction and expansion of the content of currently held beliefsgiven that pleasant affect is typically associated with reliance onexisting beliefs and known information (Clore & Gasper, 2000;Clore et al., 2001). An individual experiencing, remembering, oranticipating pleasant affect following an experience may interpretthe information provided by that experience as supportive of


currently held beliefs or may incorporate that information into analready-held belief (i.e., belief expansion). On the other hand,unpleasant affect is often experienced as failure feedback, whichleads to doubt regarding the adequacy of accessible informationand to a drive to acquire new information (Clore & Gasper, 2000;Clore et al., 2001). Furthermore, by increasing vigilant, ruminativethought, systematic processing of relevant stimuli, and reflectionon thoughts and feelings (e.g., Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema,1995), unpleasant affect will motivate a search for meaning. Thesearch for meaning that is motivated by unpleasant affect willpotentially lead to the development of new interpretations toaccount for the experience and affect (i.e., changes in beliefcontent). We note that for some individuals, specific types ofunpleasant affect, such as anxiety (Freeman et al., 2002) or anger(Kennedy, Kemp, & Dyer, 1992), will be especially significant tobelief formation and evolution. This is because specific types ofemotions implicate a particular set of appraisals and attributionsabout a situation (e.g., guilt implies one has wronged another) suchthat one is committed to related beliefs (e.g., “I am at faultfor. . .”). For other individuals, undifferentiated unpleasant affectwill be important (see Frijda, 1986), such as for those who havetrouble understanding their emotions (see Moderators of the Bidi-rectional Links Between Affect and Belief subsection for furtherdevelopment of this hypothesis).

We note that the stimuli that influence belief content and con-viction may be more or less related to the needs, goals, andconcerns that gave rise to the affective state. As moods do not haveobjects, mood-like affective arousal has the potential to influencethe content and conviction of any belief that is activated in accor-dance with that mood. For example, the object of explanations forthe experience of free-floating melancholy experienced whilewalking through the forest can be anything that comes to mind(e.g., the foreboding silence, the lack of companionship, the real-ization that every tree in this forest will one day die). This is alsotrue of emotions. For example, conviction may increase for avariety of beliefs related to the experience of fear caused by a bearchasing one through a forest (e.g., “God is punishing me,” “I amincapable of caring for myself,” “Bears are vicious killers”). How-ever, as emotions have objects, emotion-like affective arousal thatinfluences beliefs will often be related to the objects of the emotionthat gave rise to the emotion.

Empirical Support for the Second Premise

The second premise has received general, indirect empiricalsupport, most of which has investigated links between changes inaffect valence/type and changes in belief. Again, more direct testsare needed, especially those that demonstrate how affect arousalcontributes to belief content and conviction. To do this, one couldtest whether affect arousal influences beliefs by providing anattention-guiding signal that triggers a motivation to make sense ofthe experience or to regulate the arousal, such as through beliefformation and change. Experimental methods, through which af-fect is directly manipulated, will be especially useful in this regard.Also needed are direct tests of the specific nature of the linkbetween affect valence/type and belief content and conviction.More specifically, one could test whether changes in affect va-lence/type determine the particular stimuli that influence a givenbelief and how they do so. Again, experimental methods would be

useful in this regard, as would longitudinal methods, in which thecovariation of affect and belief over time is modeled.

Of the extant research on affect and belief, a series of studiesinvestigating maladaptive cognition in depression provides indi-rect support of the hypothesis that changes in affect valence/typeinfluence belief conviction (e.g., Miranda, Gross, Persons, &Hahn, 1998; Miranda & Persons, 1988). Miranda and colleagues(Miranda et al., 1998; Miranda & Persons, 1988) measured en-dorsement of dysfunctional beliefs (i.e., conviction in dysfunc-tional beliefs) before and after a mood induction. They found thatfollowing an unpleasant mood induction, women with a history ofdepression reported increased conviction in dysfunctional beliefs,whereas women without a history of depression reported decreasedconviction in dysfunctional beliefs (Miranda & Persons, 1988). Ina second study, they found that following an elation mood induc-tion, women reported decreased conviction in dysfunctional be-liefs, whereas following a depressed mood induction, womenreported increased conviction in dysfunctional beliefs (althoughthis effect reached the level of trend; Miranda et al., 1998). Thesefindings, along with those from similar studies (e.g., Brosse, Craig-head, & Craighead, 1999), support the hypothesis that changes inaffect valence influence belief conviction.

A series of studies investigating the effect of incidental emo-tions on trust provides further indirect evidence that affect valence/type influence belief conviction (Dunn & Schweitzer, 2005). Spe-cific types of emotions (e.g., happiness, anger) were induced indifferent groups of participants to determine the effects of theseinductions on self-report of trust. It was found that happiness andgratitude increased trust, whereas anger decreased trust, and allthree of these emotions influenced trust significantly more than didpride, guilt, or sadness. As trust includes positive-expectancybeliefs about another’s behavior, these results can be interpreted asshowing that increases in happiness and gratitude increased con-viction in trust-related beliefs, whereas increases in anger de-creased conviction in these types of beliefs. Again, these results donot provide an understanding of the specific manner by whichaffect type influences belief, such as through pleasant affect con-tributing to the strengthening and expansion of currently heldbeliefs and unpleasant affect contributing to the development ofnew interpretations to account for the experience and affect.

At least two studies support the hypothesis that affect valence/type influences belief content. A study of the effect of affect oncausal judgments (i.e., beliefs regarding the causes of experiences)provides evidence that affect type influences belief content (Kelt-ner, Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993). Participants who experiencedexperimentally induced sadness believed that positive and negativeevents caused by situation-based factors (vs. person) were morelikely to happen, and these factors were more responsible forambiguous events. Alternatively, participants induced to feel angrybelieved that positive and negative events caused by person-basedfactors were more likely to happen, and people were more respon-sible for ambiguous events. These results support the hypothesisthat affect valence/type influences belief content. Research on theaffect-infusion model also directly supports the hypothesis thataffect valence/type influences belief content. For example, Forgas(1994) found that participants who experienced experimentallyinduced sadness reported beliefs of self-blame for relationshipconflicts to a greater extent than participants who experiencedinduced happiness. In other words, affect valence/type (sad vs.


happy) influenced belief content (responsibility for relationshipconflicts).

Third Premise

Changes in belief content and conviction influence affectarousal and valence/type.

We propose that changes in belief conviction are more likely tochange emotion arousal, whereas changes in belief content aremore likely to change emotion valence/type. This is because be-liefs serve as concerns that predispose people to experience emo-tions. Therefore, different types of beliefs (i.e., beliefs with diver-gent content) give rise to different types (or valences) of emotions.Changing the content of a belief will potentially change the type orvalence of the emotion. Alternatively, changing the conviction ofthe belief is akin to increasing or decreasing the momentaryrelevance or importance of the concern, thereby influencing emo-tional arousal. As an example of how changes in belief content willinfluence emotion, let us consider a pregnant reverent Hinduwoman experiencing terror on viewing a full solar eclipse. Revi-sion of a belief from “This unnatural event will lead to birthdefects in my child” to “This natural event will not lead to birthdefects in my child” will lead to changes in emotion type fromterror to serenity. As an example of how changes in belief con-viction influence emotion, a corporate executive sentenced toprison for fraud may increase conviction in several beliefs (e.g.,“This justice system is unfair,” “People like me get stabbed inprison”), thereby increasing emotional arousal. In this last exam-ple, the emotional arousal will be of a certain valence or type,which will be determined by the content of the particular belief.

Changes in belief content and conviction will influence moodsin a different, more general way. As moods do not have an object,(a) beliefs cannot give rise to moods as they do emotions (as thebelief has an object), and (b) any belief that is activated inaccordance with a mood has the potential to influence that mood.We posit that a belief is most likely to influence a mood when thebelief is called on to explain the presence or nature of the mood.For example, one may attempt to account for a melancholy moodby searching for or changing a belief (e.g., “I must be sick with theflu,” “I feel sad because I exploit others”). The mood arousal islikely to decrease merely by accounting for it through beliefactivation or change (see Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). In addition, byaccounting for the mood, the object of the belief will have becomethe object of the mood, which will therefore become more emo-tion-like. Further changes to belief conviction and content thenhave the potential to contribute to changes in affect arousal andvalence/type in the ways described in the previous paragraph.

We note that in some cases beliefs will influence affect byinfluencing whether affect is regulated through the use of partic-ular strategies and which strategies are used. For example, anindividual who believes “The expression of anger is unhealthy”may avoid experiences that increase anger (i.e., situation selection)or may reduce anger through suppression. In this manner, beliefswill serve as distal influences on affect, and changes in belief willinfluence changes in affect via increasing or decreasing the use ofaffect regulation strategies.

Empirical Support for the Third Premise

There exists general and indirect support for this premise. Muchmore research is needed to substantiate the link from belief to affectand the specific nature of this link. The specific mechanisms thataccount for how beliefs influence emotions and moods are likely to beexplicated through the use of experimental methods, in which beliefsare directly manipulated and resulting changes in emotions are mea-sured. Longitudinal studies would be useful in investigating the co-variation of moods and beliefs over time.

Of the extant research, several studies provide general supportfor the link from belief to affect. First, research has found thatbeliefs about emotions are causally associated with the experienceof emotions (Tamir, John, Srivastava, & Gross, 2007). Second, ina study of breast cancer patients receiving surgery, it was foundthat higher expectancy-related beliefs about positive events occur-ring were longitudinally related to lower levels of unpleasantemotions (Carver et al., 1993). Third, it has been found thatparticipants with high and low levels of belief in a just world haddifferent patterns of autonomic arousal during a potentially stress-ful laboratory task (Tomaka & Blascovich, 1994). Fourth, in twoexperimental studies, beliefs regarding interracial interaction part-ners’ willingness to interact were causally related to participants’anger and hostility (Butz & Plant, 2006). Fifth, studies have foundthat attributions are causally associated with emotion generation(e.g., Averill, 1983; see Weiner, 1985, for a review). Any attribu-tion that is thought to be true to an extent greater than the level ofchance can be considered a belief; therefore, these findings supportthe hypothesis that beliefs influence emotion generation. It is notclear whether belief content, conviction, or both influenced affectin the studies reviewed in this paragraph, as belief content andconviction were not independently measured.

A study of system justification theory (Jost & Hunyady, 2002)provides indirect support for the hypothesis that changing beliefconviction can modulate affect. According to system justificationtheory, people are motivated to justify and rationalize the statusquo and supporting systems (e.g., conservative political ideologi-cal systems) to establish and maintain order, closure, certainty, andperceptions of a safe and reassuring environment in the face ofthreat. One way in which they do this is to endorse, accept, andstrengthen beliefs that support the status quo. In a study of how andwhy people tolerate ongoing social and economic inequality, Wak-slak, Jost, Tyler, and Chen (2007) found that the induction ofsystem-justifying beliefs was causally associated with decreases inguilt and frustration. In other words, changes in belief convictionled to decreases in affect arousal for the emotions guilt andfrustration. Studies on attribution theory support the hypothesisthat changing belief content can modulate affect. For example,Islam and Hewstone (1993) had Muslim and Hindu participants (a)produce a belief related to the cause of ingroup and outgroupmembers’ control of positively and negatively valenced acts (e.g.,helping a person who had fallen from a bike), and (b) rate theirbeliefs in terms of internal–external, stable–unstable, controlla-ble– uncontrollable, and global–specific causal dimensions. Incomplex ways, these ratings of causal dimensions (i.e., beliefcontent) predicted the extent to which participants experiencedhappiness, disappointment, pride, and anger following the ratingtask (e.g., Muslim participants experienced feelings of happinessand pride to the greatest extent when a positive outcome was


perceived as internal and global). These results can be interpretedas showing that changes in belief content led to changes in specifictypes of emotions.

Future Directions

Our analysis is intended to account for how affect and beliefinfluence each other, and to serve as a guiding framework forfuture empirical research. As such, we do not directly address themany potential variables that moderate the link from belief toaffect and affect to belief. We view this topic as a clear startingpoint for future research. We noted earlier that all factors thatinfluence the bidirectional relation between affect and belief do sovia their impact on the feedback loop. Below, we describe how onevariable, emotional awareness, potentially moderates the link fromaffect to belief. In addition, we propose that our analysis can helpexplain a variety of phenomena, and research in these areas canhelp test and refine the analysis. To illustrate this point, wedescribe some ways in which our analysis might be applied tofurther understand why people believe what they do.

Moderators of the Bidirectional Links BetweenAffect and Belief

There are likely numerous factors that influence the link from affectto belief and from belief to affect. Many of these factors are likelycognitive in nature (e.g., individual differences in the need for closure;Kruglanski, 1980), whereas other factors are likely emotional innature. In regard to the latter, we hypothesize that emotionalawareness moderates the link from affect to belief. Emotionalawareness is an individual differences construct composed ofmultiple facets. One facet, attention to emotions, represents theextent to which an individual attends to and uses emotions to guidethoughts and behavior (e.g., Gohm & Clore, 2000). The secondfacet, clarity of emotions, can be divided into two facets repre-senting the extent to which (a) the source of emotions is under-stood and (b) the type (e.g., anger vs. anxiety) of emotion isunderstood (Baker, Thomas, Thomas, & Owens, 2007).

We hypothesize that emotional awareness contributes to beliefchange by moderating the extent to which affect influences beliefcontent and conviction. Direct evidence for this hypothesis comesfrom (a) studies finding associations between individual differ-ences in levels of emotional awareness and various types of beliefs(e.g., Berenbaum et al., 2006; Serper & Berenbaum, 2008) and (b)studies finding that manipulating emotional awareness contributesto variations in beliefs (Berenbaum, Boden, & Baker, 2009; Boden& Berenbaum, 2007). There are also several indirect sources ofempirical support for this proposition. For example, directingattention to one’s current or anticipated affect leads to morein-depth or substantial processing of the emotions (Berkowitz &Troccoli, 1990), which results in a greater influence on the judg-ments and decisions that result (e.g., Lerner & Keltner, 2000;Schwarz & Clore, 1983).

Given these empirical findings, we propose that the less anindividual attends to his or her affect, the less likely he or she willgenerate hypotheses to explain it, and the less the affect willcontribute to variations in the conviction and content of beliefs.Greater attending to affect is likely to result in variations in

conviction and content of beliefs. For example, attending to fearwhen confronted with threat (e.g., a tornado rampaging through thetown in which I live) may lead to the strengthening of relatedbeliefs (e.g., “This tornado is God’s will”).

We further propose that high levels of understanding of thesource or type of affect have the potential to lead to changes inbelief content to more accurately reflect affective experience, andlow levels may contribute to changes to less accurately reflectaffective experience. As an example of the latter, regardless of thetrue cause of nervousness, a person may change belief content toreflect a cause for the nervousness (e.g., memory of having un-protected sex) that merely became salient while he or she tried tounderstand the emotion (e.g., “I was feeling bad all morningbecause I was thinking about the time I had unprotected sex”). Incontrast, understanding the source or type of the emotion maycontribute to belief content that accurately reflects the affectiveexperience (e.g., “I am feeling sad because of a fight I had with myfriend last night”). We note that increased understanding of sourceor type may lead to inaccurate belief content when emotionallysalient stimuli contribute to intolerable unpleasant affect. In thesecases, we propose that the beliefs serve to regulate the unpleasantaffect.

Why Do People Believe What They Do?

Every person, no matter what age, cultural background, sex, orany other factor, holds numerous distinct beliefs. People have thepotential to form an infinite number of new beliefs. Whereas somebeliefs are of little importance (e.g., “Tortilla chips taste best withsalsa”), others are of great importance (e.g., “God exists”);whereas some beliefs are adaptive and provide comfort (e.g., “Iwill successfully accomplish many of my goals”), others are mal-adaptive and distressing (e.g., “I am a worthless human being”);whereas some beliefs are relatively normative, at least in thesociocultural context in which they are held (e.g., “All nationsshould have a clearly recognized leader”), others are quite idio-syncratic (e.g., “The earth is flat”), peculiar (e.g., “The alignmentof solar bodies at the time of my birth will dictate my experiencesfor the rest of my life”), and outright bizarre (e.g., “Jim Jones,orchestrator of the Jonestown massacre, was the reincarnation ofJesus, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and Vladimir Lenin”). The factthat people hold so many distinct beliefs, including those that aremaladaptive, distressing, peculiar, and bizarre, begs the question,why?

One response would be that people believe that which is sup-ported by evidence, and it is clear that many beliefs have a greatdeal of supporting evidence (e.g., “I will die sooner than I wouldlike”). However, many beliefs lack tangible supporting evidence(e.g., a substantial portion of the population believes in the exis-tence of extrasensory perception and ghosts; Moore, 2005). Asecond response, corresponding with our analysis, would be thatpeople hold beliefs that make sense of experience, and thosebeliefs that do so successfully are held with high levels of convic-tion. However, many beliefs that people hold seemingly do notmake good sense out of experience. For example, an individualmay believe “God is great” in the face of an avalanche of contraryexperience (e.g., her child dying of cancer, losing her job thatprovides health insurance for her child, her husband having anaffair while she works to support the family). A third response, and


one that is somewhat unique to our analysis and a related frame-work (Boden & Gross, 2010), is that people hold beliefs that helpmake sense of their emotional experiences and that help themregulate affect in valued directions.

We believe that investigation of the premises that we havedeveloped in this article have the potential to contribute to agreater understanding of a wide range of beliefs. Take, for in-stance, religious and political beliefs. Religious and political be-liefs are arguably some of the most influential and powerful beliefsthat people hold. They are typically held with a high degree ofconviction and are less easily changed than most other beliefs.Furthermore, at least some such beliefs have been described asforms of self-deception (Triandis, 2009). On the basis of ouranalysis, we hypothesize that many religious and political beliefshelp make sense of emotional experience or successfully regulateaffect in valued directions. Because of their success at doing so,they are strongly held even though they often have little tangibleevidence to support them. These hypotheses are consistent withterror management theory (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski,1991) and system justification theory (Jost & Hunyady, 2002).

On the basis of the premises we have developed, we hypothesizethat explaining and regulating affect through belief change isespecially important for understanding why people hold distress-ing, maladaptive, peculiar, or bizarre beliefs, such as those com-monly found among individuals with psychopathology (e.g., anindividual with obsessive– compulsive disorder believes thatbrushing her teeth for 2 hours per day will protect her from futuredisease). Using delusions to illustrate this point, others have pro-posed that delusions are formed to explain anomalous experiencesand, in doing so, downregulate anxiety associated with experienc-ing unexplained phenomena (e.g., the belief that “Aliens are read-ing my mind” may help an individual make sense of a variety ofperceptual anomalies; Maher, 1974, 1988). We hypothesize thatdelusions may also help individuals make sense of emotionalexperiences for which they have difficulty generating explanations,and through this process downregulate unpleasant emotionalarousal (also see Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). This account is notlimited to delusions. For example, the belief that they are eitherhaving or are at risk of having a heart attack can help individualsmake sense of the somatic symptoms of a panic attack that seem tocome out of nowhere. Thus, similar to all beliefs (e.g., Preston &Epley, 2005), we propose that making sense of experience, includ-ing emotional experience, is a primary function of delusions aswell as other beliefs associated with psychopathology.

We are optimistic that future research based on our analysis hasthe potential to provide a much greater understanding of thefunctions of beliefs, including religious and political beliefs andthose characteristic of psychopathology. Such research could in-vestigate in what contexts particular beliefs are called on to fulfillparticular affect-related functions. This research would be espe-cially pertinent for treatment of psychiatric disorders that includedistressing and maladaptive beliefs (e.g., Hollon & Beck, 1994).As these beliefs often cannot be changed simply by presentingcorrective information, understanding their functionality mightprovide a clearer means by which to choose alternative, efficacioustreatments (e.g., helping individuals regulate their emotionsthrough mindfulness and acceptance-based practices).

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Received December 7, 2009Revision received April 20, 2010

Accepted April 21, 2010 �


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The bidirectional relations between affect and belief.

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