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How People Form Beliefs| title | How People Form Beliefs |
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| start_date | 2023/11/10 |
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| schedule | 11h15-12h30 |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | 6th Floor Room |
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| summary | In this talk I will present our recent behavioural and neuroscience research on how the brain motivates itself to form particular beliefs and why it does so. I will propose that the utility of a belief is derived from the potential outcomes associated with holding it. Outcomes can be internal (e.g., positive/negative feelings) or external (e.g., material gain/loss), and only some are dependent on belief accuracy. We show that belief change occurs when the potential outcomes of holding it alters, for example when moving from a safe environment to a threatening environment. Our findings yield predictions about how belief formation alters as a function of mental health. We test these predictions using a linguistic analysis of participants’ web searches ‘in the wild’ to quantify the affective properties of information they consume and relate those to reported psychiatric symptoms. Finally, I will present a study in which we used our framework to alter the incentive structure of social media platforms to reduce the spread of misinformation and improve belief accuracy. |
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| responsibles | Le Lec, Pejsachowicz |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2023/11/08 17:15 UTC |
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