ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Belief traps: Tackling the inertia of harmful beliefs.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- (In)congruence Between Justice Beliefs and Justice Experiences Predicts Adolescents' Prosocial Behaviors: Response Surface Analysis.Journal of personality · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal asymmetries on brain energy landscape uncover system entrapment related to depression severity.Nature communications · 2026Article
- How mood shapes belief updating bias in depression.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Cognitive distortions are associated with increasing political polarization.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- What do patients with lumbar spinal stenosis think is physical therapy's best card? A survey of perceived message strength.The Journal of manual & manipulative therapy · 2025Article
- Towards an expanded neurocognitive account of ketamine's rapid antidepressant effects.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Review
- Placebo Effects: Neurological Mechanisms Inducing Physiological, Organic, and Belief Responses-A Prospective Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Thinking about Believing: Can Metacognitive Reflection Encourage Belief Updating?Journal of Intelligence · 2024Article
- Pathways to the persistence of drug use despite its adverse consequences.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Review
- A cognitive pathway to punishment insensitivity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Modular tipping points: How local network structure impacts critical transitions in networked spin systems.PloS one · 2023Article
- Resilience and active inference.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Beliefs can be highly resilient in the sense that they are not easily abandoned in the face of counterevidence. This has the advantage of guiding consistent behavior and judgments but may also have destructive consequences for individuals, nature, and society. For instance, pathological beliefs can sustain psychiatric disorders, the belief that rhinoceros horn is an aphrodisiac may drive a species extinct, beliefs about gender or race may fuel discrimination, and belief in conspiracy theories can undermine democracy. Here, we present a unifying framework of how self-amplifying feedbacks shape the inertia of beliefs on levels ranging from neuronal networks to social systems. Sustained exposure to counterevidence can destabilize rigid beliefs but requires organized rational override as in cognitive behavioral therapy for pathological beliefs or institutional control of discrimination to reduce racial biases. Black-and-white thinking is a major risk factor for the formation of resilient beliefs associated with psychiatric disorders as well as prejudices and conspiracy thinking. Such dichotomous thinking is characteristic of a lack of cognitive resources, which may be exacerbated by stress. This could help explain why conspiracy thinking and psychiatric disorders tend to peak during crises. A corollary is that addressing social factors such as poverty, social cleavage, and lack of education may be the most effective way to prevent the emergence of rigid beliefs, and thus of problems ranging from psychiatric disorders to prejudices, conspiracy theories, and posttruth politics.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.