Belief System Psychology

Hello, this is Vanessa.

I'm kidding. Mike is my given name. That part where I said I was Vanessa was a lie. So you're very welcome. Humans enjoy telling lies. We love things that aren't completely true because we have to. It's frequently all we have. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to prove something completely. Instead, we have the believer's faith and the scientist's confidence interval. We only believe we know what we think we know. In this article, I'll look at a type of lie we tell ourselves. And I intend to use belief to transform a lie...into a truth.

Mike: I need to find a good way to study belief and behavior if I'm going to harness the power of belief. So I'm paying a visit to UCLA's Dr. Aaron Blaisdell, with whom I collaborated on the "Greater Good" Trolley Problem episode from last season. (The train whistle blows) Dr. Blaisdell, it's good to see you again. Mike, it's good to see you again. Thank you for your assistance last season, but I have something new I'd like to investigate. I began to reflect on beliefs and how we form them. Beliefs about what causes our behavior, in particular. I want to be able to break it down and just look at how people respond to their surroundings and how that affects their beliefs.

A Skinner Box is an excellent place to begin. Because, as I tell my students, a Skinner Box is to a psychologist what a test tube is to a chemist. What are you doing with this pigeon, Dr. Skinner? I'm about to demonstrate a fundamental behavioral principle. Mike: A Skinner Box, invented by Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner is a chamber in which animals can be isolated and subjected to carefully controlled stimuli.

Skinner conducted a seminal experiment in which he fed pigeons in boxes at regular intervals. He discovered that the pigeons seemed to believe that whatever they were doing just before the food arrived was what caused the food to appear, and they would then repeat that behavior over and over--for example, hopping around or spinning.

Skinner referred to this as "superstitious behavior. "So, what are your goals? What is your ideal test? Essentially a replication of Skinner's superstitious experiment, but with people instead of pigeons. I'm curious to see if people develop their own superstitious rituals or beliefs.

Have we done this before with people? I don't believe such a thorough examination has been conducted. According to the literature I've read, it's mostly pigeons.

B.F. Skinner's research demonstrated that if you give a pigeon a reward on a regular basis, regardless of how it behaves, the pigeon will not figure it out. Instead, the pigeon will develop superstitious behaviors because it believes it is in control, despite the lack of evidence to the contrary. But what about people? Observing people create new superstitions may show us how beliefs are formed, but here's the thing: A person cannot simply be placed in a Skinner Box. People are quite clever, so I have devised a much more elaborate ruse with Dr. Aaron Blaisdell. Hello and welcome to Victory Vault.

Mike: "Victory Vault" is a fabricated game show that we created to entice our unsuspecting subjects into participating in a human Skinner Box.

We rented a sound stage and built what appeared to be a game show set but was actually our study. We outfitted the room with a checkered floor, a useless button, multiple cameras, and a live microphone, all of which have nothing to do with winning the game. We also included an ATM slot on the wall where dollar bills would be fed into the room at regular intervals instead of food. Meanwhile, I'd be the executive producer of this new game show, which was being developed for a television network. Rebecca is our first subject. Yes, I am completely ignorant. I'm ecstatic, excellent. So, let me tell you what you need to know. One, you will be able to keep all of the money you receive today.