BELIEF: AN OWNER’S MANUAL
ARTICLE 4
FUNDAMENTAL NEEED:
THE FIRST OF THREE CHARACTERISTICS
THAT AFFECT THE GUIDANCE
BELIEFS PROVIDE
As noted previously, improving the effectiveness with which we evaluate beliefs requires systematic attention to both the nature of the guidance beliefs provide and the assumptions we (or other believers) make about that guidance. There are, as we learned in Article 3, three frequently overlooked characteristics that powerfully influence the nature of that guidance and that, when overlooked, lead us astray. They are: (1) the fundamental need we look to our beliefs to satisfy, (2) the precision of our beliefs’ predictions, and (3) the viewpoints of our beliefs.
We’ll be exploring these characteristics and their interactions in the articles that follow. This article is intended to introduce you to the first of these characteristics: fundamental need.
A BRIEF ORIENTATION TO THE FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS THAT MOTIVATE BELIEF
If we want to know how well a belief fulfills its function as a cognitive tool, it’s essential to identify the need we rely on it to satisfy and to determine how well it satisfies that need.
We look to beliefs to satisfy one or both of two fundamental needs. The first of these is the need for information that helps us survive and prosper: information about the way things are, what’s going to happen, and how to get things done. I’ll be calling beliefs we rely on to satisfy these needs “informative beliefs.”
The second fundamental need that motivates belief is the need to see ourselves as wise, powerful, loving, connected, and valued; to see the world as safe and to see our position in it as secure. Sigmund Freud and his disciples described those beliefs as the products of our “defenses” (Draguns, 2004). Such beliefs help us cope with realities that might otherwise overwhelm us. I will be referring to such beliefs as “reassuring.”
Both informative and reassuring beliefs can be beneficial. Imagine, for example, that your best efforts to reach out romantically to someone who attracts you have been rebuffed. On the one hand, there’s a great deal of comfort to be gained from (defensively) blaming that rejection on factors that are temporary or outside yourself. In fact, the confidence and optimism you preserve by explaining away your failure may make it easier to reach out to the next person you find intriguing (Seligman, 1990). On the other hand, there’s something to be said for what you might learn by thinking about your role in that rejection.
As you can see, the benefits of these two classes of belief can be incompatible. Thus, if you wish to know how well a belief provides the assistance you expect, you need to know whether you want it to provide you with accurate information, on the one hand, or reassurance, on the other.
Without productive attention to this matter, believers are likely to view their reassuring beliefs as informative. That is, they’re likely to rely on reassuring but inaccurate beliefs for guidance and, by doing so, make it less likely that they’ll achieve their goals.
If there’s a way to determine the value of a single belief we rely on for both accurate information and reassurance, I haven’t discovered it. As such, I suggest assessing such beliefs twice: once as informative and once as reassuring.
In the interest of making you more aware of what you want from your beliefs, this website offers techniques you can use to identify the needs you assume your beliefs satisfy. In the interest of making you a better judge of the guidance your beliefs actually provide, this website offers techniques you can use to identify the need(s) that a given belief actually has the potential to satisfy. And, in the interest of helping you judge how well your beliefs serve you, this website offers techniques that help you evaluate the differences between the guidance you expect your beliefs to provide and the guidance they deliver.
Although many beliefs are motivated by the desire for reassurance, we view most of our beliefs as informative. As such, explorations of precision and viewpoint in the next few articles will focus primarily on their effects on allegedly informative beliefs. We will explore the ways precision and viewpoint affect reassuring beliefs in later articles.
EXERCISE 4A:
INCREASING YOUR AWARENESS
OF THE FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS
THAT MOTIVATE YOUR BELIEFS
1) Choose one or, if you wish, two practice beliefs. For each belief . . .
2) Ask yourself whether you look to the belief in question to help you accomplish your objective goals. If so, how?
a) If you look to the belief in question to help you accomplish your objective goals, has its guidance ever failed you? If so, how did you explain its failure? How, if at all, did that failure lead you to revise that belief? Overall, does the guidance this belief provides live up to your expectations?
3) Ask yourself whether you look to the belief in question for reassurance. If so, does believing it make you feel wise? Powerful? Benevolent? Connected? Valued? Secure? How does it do these things? Is the belief reassuring in other ways? If so, what are they?
a) If you look to the belief in question for reassurance . . .
i) has it ever failed to provide the reassurance you expected? If so, how did you respond to that failure?
ii) have you ever assumed that the guidance the belief in question provided would help you achieve objective goals? If so, did it do so? If not, how did you explain its failure? How, if at all, did that failure lead you to alter that belief?
iii) does the reassurance this belief provides live up to your expectations?
4) Ask yourself whether the belief in question helps you both accomplish your objective goals and (independent of the reassurance and confidence those accomplishments provide) feel wise, powerful, benevolent, connected, etc. Were these needs ever in conflict? If so, how did you resolve that conflict?
5) What thoughts and feelings did you experience while doing this exercise?
EXERCISE 4B:
INCREASING YOUR AWARENESS
OF YOUR ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING
THE FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS
THAT MOTIVATE YOUR BELIEFS
For each of the practice beliefs examined in EXERCISE 4A, above . . .
1) Designate a situation in which the belief has guided you. Identify the belief’s effects on your
a) experiences/perceptions
b) emotional reactions
c) thoughts/evaluations/understandings
d) decisions
e) actions
2) Reflect on the effects identified in Question 1.
a) Ask yourself, “Do those effects suggest that I viewed the belief as an accurate description of reality? (In other words, did I treat the belief as if it provided information about the way things are, what’s going to happen, and how to get things done?) Record your answer to that question.
b) Ask yourself, “Do those effects suggest that I viewed the belief as helping me see myself – perhaps inaccurately – as wise, powerful, benevolent, connected, and valued and/or as helping me – perhaps inaccurately – to see the world as safe and my position in it as secure?” Record your answer(s).
c) Ask yourself whether your answer(s) suggest you treated the belief as informative, reassuring, or both.
3) Ask yourself how closely the guidance your belief actually provided matched the guidance you assumed it provided.
4) What thoughts and feelings did you experience while doing this exercise?
REFERENCES
Draguns, J. G. (2004). Defense Mechanisms in the Clinic, the Laboratory, and the Social World: Toward Closing the Gaps. In U. Hentschel, G. Smith, J. G. Draguns, & W. Ehlers, Defense Mechanisms: Theoretical, Research, and Clinical Perspectives (pp. 55-75). New York: Elsevier.
Seligman, M. E. (1990). Learned Optimism. New York: Random House.