The Cognitive Science of Belief

Julien Musolino holds a dual appointment in the psychology department at Rutgers University and at the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. He is a cognitive scientist, public speaker, award-winning teacher, and author. He has appeared on national television, participated in public debates, and is a frequent guest on radio and podcast programs. Joseph Sommer is a doctor of cognitive psychology at Rutgers University. His research takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying belief formation and belief revision. Pernille Hemmer is Associate Professor at Rutgers University. She is affiliated with the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science and the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) since 2015, including the prestigious NSF CAREER award.

'Readers, whether researchers or professionals, will find a rich, nuanced deep dive into the complex nature of belief … Recommended.' S. Reysen, Choice

• Introduction Joseph Sommer, Julien Musolino and Pernille Hemmer; Part I. Understanding Belief: 1. The cognitive science of 'belief' (the word) Ray Jackendoff; 2. The science of belief: a progress report Nicolas Porot and Eric Mandelbaum; 3. The role of context in belief evaluation: costs and benefits of irrational beliefs Elly Vintiadis and Lisa Bortolotti; 4. How and why does schematic knowledge affect memory? Qiong Zhang; 5. Probability, belief, and the richness of cognition Steve Piantadosi; 6. Intuitive and reflective beliefs Dan Sperber; 7. Intuitive and reflective beliefs in a modern world Bastien Trémolière and Florence Lespiau; 8. Do cultural misbeliefs cause costly behavior? Hugo Mercier and Sacha Altay; 9. Cultural evolutionary psychology of belief Theiss Bendixen and Benjamin Grant Purzycki; Part II. Domains of Beliefs: 10. Religious beliefs Pascal Boyer; 11. Essentialist views of criminal behavior predict increased punitiveness Justin W. Martin, Sophie Charles, and Larisa Heiphetz; 12. Political belief formation: Individual differences and situational factors Lala Muradova and Kevin Arceneaux; 13: Americans' lack of political beliefs and the consequences for democracy Yalidy Matos and Katherine McCabe; 14. Thoughts and players: an introduction to old and new economic perspectives on beliefs Andras Molnar and George Loewenstein; 15. How intuitive beliefs inoculate us against scientific ones Andrew Shtulman; 16: COVID-19: conspiracies and collateral damage vs. constructive critique Stephan Lewandowsky, Konstantinos Armaos, Hendrik Bruns, Philipp Schmid, Dawn Liu Holford, Ulrike Hahn, Ahmed Al-Rawi, Sunita Sah, John Cook, Marie Juanchich and James Ladyman; 17. Believing in race vs. knowing ourselves Guy Harrison; Part III. Variation in Beliefs: 18. Delusions Philip R. Corlett; 19: delusions and beliefs as a symptom of illness Eisuke Sakakibara; 20. The elusive search for individual differences in myside thinking Keith E. Stanovich and Maggie E. Toplak; 21. Modeling individual differences in beliefs and opinions using thurstonian models Michael Lee and Michelle Y. Ke; 22. Belief in human rights: an opportunity for cross-cultural cognitive science Jordan Kiper; 23. The belief-action gap in environmental psychology: How wide? How irrational? Aurore Grandin, Mélusine Boon-Falleur and Coralie Chevallier; 24. Training can improve decision making Irene Scopelliti; 25. Building better beliefs through actively open-minded thinking Emlen Metz.