In 1970, Darryl Bem wrote a book
called, Beliefs, Attitudes and Human Affairs. His book is
as important for its discussion of why studying the
source of our beliefs and attitudes is important, as it is for
his hypotheses on how they are formed.
Bem points out that
how we believe what we believe can be difficult to extract from
our thinking. Holding a belief means that you perceive a
relationship between two things or between something and its
characteristics. Bem talks about our "primitive beliefs," and he
says that every belief we have can ultimately be dissected to the
point where the information will rest on "a basic belief in the
credibility of one's own sensory experience or upon a basic belief
in the credibility of so0me external authority." To restate with a
simplified example: Either I feel the fire as hot and I believe it,
or my mommy told me the fire was hot and I believed it. Obviously,
one can reinforce the other. To elaborate more fully, Bem sees
beliefs this way:
There are "zero-order
beliefs". Included in this group are all the things we learn as tiny
children as we react with our environment; they are all the things
that are validated by our experiences. We hold these most firmly
because they are supported by our direct sensory experiences.
There are "first-order
beliefs". These are formed as conclusions to our logical thinking
processes that stem from our direct sensory experiences. In his
example, the logic works like this:
Here is an example of a
zero-order belief based upon personal experience:
1st Premise:
|
My senses tell
me that oranges feel round |
Zero-order
belief
|
2nd Premise:
|
My senses
tell me true
|
Zero-order
belief
|
| 3rd
Premise: |
Therefore, oranges are round. |
First-order belief
|
Or, you can have a zero-order belief
based upon an external authority:
1st Premise:
|
Mommy says
doggies are dangerous |
Zero-order
belief
|
2nd Premise:
|
Mommy says
only true things |
Zero-order
belief
|
3rd
Premise:
|
Therefore, doggies are bad
|
First-order belief
|
"Most religious and quasi-religious
beliefs are first-order beliefs based upon an unquestioned
zero-order faith in some internal or external source of
knowledge" (Bem, p.7).
Then, there are
higher-order beliefs with vertical structures which are similar to
zero-order beliefs, except that they are derived by inductive
reasoning based on our experiences:
1st Premise:
|
My two friends
got cancer
|
Zero-order
belief
|
2nd Premise:
|
They both
died soon after diagnosis |
Zero-order
belief
|
3rd
Premise:
|
Therefore, cancer causes death |
Higher-order belief
|
If a higher-order belief was held
together only by its vertical structures, it could easily be
collapsed, but they are also held together by horizontal
structures, which are essentially multiple, reinforcing sets of
higher-order beliefs. Higher-order beliefs in a horizontal
structure looks like this:
Smoking causes cancer
|
Smokers drink more heavily than
non-smokers |
Statistics show smokers die younger
than non-smokers |
Cancer can cause death
|
Heavy drinking can lead to early
death |
These statistics are reliable |
| Therefore, smokers die younger |
Therefore, smokers die younger |
Therefore, smokers die
younger. |
A more complex form of higher-order
belief is evaluative beliefs which are derived syllogistically.
Here is an example that shows
|
1st Premise:
|
Black economic
power will bring about racial justice and equality |
Higher-order
belief
|
2nd Premise:
|
Racial
justice and equality are desirable |
Evaluative
belief
|
3rd
Premise:
|
Therefore, black economic power is desirable. |
Attitudinal statement
|
What part do these beliefs have in our
values? Bem indicates it's not easy to say.
To know whether a positive atittude or
an evaluative belief is also a value for a particular
individual, one must know the functional role it plays in his
total belief system [my italics]. One man's higher-order
attitude can be another man's value. Money is a good example; it
is a means to other values for most individuals, but an end in
itself for some. (Bem, p. 16)
In addition, there is reason to believe
according to Bem's analysis of the work of Maccoby and Fromm
that all of those belief constructs are affected by whether you
have an attraction to love of life or whether yours is an
attraction to the dead or mechanical (the work of ) which
hypothesis is essentially this:
A person with intense love of life
is attracted to that which is alive, which grows, which is
free and unpredictable. he has an aversion to violence and
all that destroys life. thus he dislikes sterile and rigid
order. He rejects being mechanized, becoming a lifeless part
of 7machine-like organization. He enjoys life in all its
manifestations in contrast to mere excitement or thrills. He
believes in molding and influencing by love, reason and
example rather than by force.
At the other pole,
there are individuals attracted to that which is rigidly
ordered, mechanical and unalive. These people do not like
anything free and uncontrolled. They feel that people must be
regulated within well-oiled machines. The extreme are those who
are attracted to what is dead (Maccoby, 1968, p. 2, quoted in
Bem, 1970, p.20)
So, thus far, we might conclude that to
the extent a person's zero-order and first-order beliefs have
been conditioned in a life-loving environment, the person will
have values that affirm love and reason and, presumably, lack of
prejudice. And conversely, to the extent that they are not, you
will produce people who have values that affirm authoritarian
and dogmatic choices which will tend toward prejudice.
Obviously, this can be extrapolated to make many statements
about how and why a person would or would not be able to
maintain conviction in whatever set of values might be chosen.
How then, do we apply this concept of beliefs
and attitudes to a non-tangible interaction like forgiveness? Let's
presume, since there isn't any research available to demonstrate
otherwise, that forgiveness is a value that is acquired as an
evaluative higher-order belief. In other words, the thought process
would look somewhat like this:
|
1st Premise:
|
I accidentally
let go of my resentment and found I felt better
(or I was backed into a corner by my own misery and the only
way I could relieve it was to let go of my resentment )
|
Zero-order belief
|
2nd Premise:
|
Perhaps it is best to let go of
resentments
|
Evaluative belief
|
3rd
Premise:
|
Forgiveness seems to bring a sense of peace.
|
First-order belief
|
4th
Premise:
|
A
sense of inner peace is desirable
|
Evaluative belief
|
5th Premise:
|
Therefore, forgiveness is desirable. |
Attitudinal statement
|
It works without modification inspite of the absence of a 2nd
party, inspite of when the zero-order belief comes into
existence. So, it may be reasonable to make the statement that
A held value of
Forgiveness begins as a zero-order belief, even though it is may not
have been learned in childhood, and it qualifies as such because its
benefit is supported by our direct sensor experience as desirable.
The experience of resentment is such that it is highly unlikely that
one could try forgiving simply because it was suggested by someone
else, regardless of how trusted. And even if one were to be
convinced by an external authority that it should be tried, the
zero-order belief would not be established until it was actually
experienced. The fact that the environment being interacted with is
internal and exclusive of the presence of others does not mar the
applicability of Bem's hypothesis to this internal state.
