Relative to Art One of Manã¢ââ¢s Important New Cognitive Developments Was the Ability to
Belief Systems: what they are and how they affect y'all
Your belief organisation is the invisible strength behind your beliefs.
Together with other factors such as your personality, your genetic ready upward and your habits, your belief organization is ane of the strongest forces that affects any decision that you are making. The communication styles you are using. The ways in which you react to any things that happen in your life.
Whatever aspect of your behavior, really.
You lot have probably heard of the famous nature-nurture contend. In case yous oasis't, its the give-and-take whether human being behavior is primarily driven by genetic factors, or primarily past ecology factors.
Belief systems are a part of the environmental side of the coin. Humans accumulate thousands of beliefs throughout our lifetime, about all aspects of life. Nosotros gain them through things that other people say to us, things we hear on the news, things nosotros read, or any other external influences that we are exposed to.
All of these beliefs are interacting with ane another, affecting ane another, and together course a system.
A brief introduction to systems thinking
"A system isn't just whatsoever old collection of things. A organisation is an interconnected ready of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something"
- Donella H. Meadows in Thinking in Systems: A Primer
In other words, there are three main characteristics that define a system:
- it consists of a set of elements
- these elements are interconnected with 1 some other
- these elements are organized in a way to attain a goal
The elements of a belief system obviously are beliefs. If nosotros wanted to complicate the issue, we could also argue that values and assumptions are also part of a belief system. And that would certainly exist right.
But for simplification, in this commodity I am going to exclusively talk nigh behavior as such.
These beliefs are interconnected with 1 some other. A modify in one belief will bear upon the system as a whole. If it is a core conventionalities, a alter tin can potentially lead to the disruption of the arrangement every bit a whole. If a ready of beliefs changes, other parts of the organisation will have to rearrange in order to rebuild the coherence of the system.
The ultimate goal of any belief organisation is a to ensure homo survival and the passing on of your genes.
Intelligence and culture accept developed as a way for human beings to evolve faster — non on a physical level, but on a mental level. Cultural evolution happens much quicker than biological evolution. Belief systems accept evolved as office of this development in order to ensure the survival of man beings.
Likewise that ultimate goal of achieving survival, in that location are too sub-goals of conventionalities systems in unlike aspects of life.
For instance, beliefs around sexuality and dating behavior are meant to ensure the passing of an individual'due south genes onto the next generation.
Beliefs around effective decision-making, negotiation and business exist in order to help you achieve a certain status in the social hierarchy.
Behavior around dealing with things similar incertitude and anxiety exist in order to help you maintain mental wellness and and then on and then along.
In other words, the sub-goals of your belief systems exist to ensure that yous are capable of fulfilling sure needs that you have, whether that is related to fulfilling sexual desires, being secure, feeling loved, feeling a sense of belonging, or being able of developing your self-esteem.
Belief systems strive towards maintaining congruence amid their elements
"Cognitive and behavioral change was seen to result from the need to maintain residuum or congruence amidst the elements of the belief organisation and between beliefs and behaviors" — Grube, Mayton & Ball-Rokeach
I remember well the time when I was starting to go exposed to the writings of people like Seth Godin, who are basically arguing that the world is shifting towards a project-based economy, and that long-term job security can non be in such an economy.
According to this worldview, at that place volition be simply very few conventional jobs like the i'due south our parents had for the current generation of millennials. Jobs that people were doing for many years at a time, that were stable with a regular income and a big set of benefits.
For somebody who has grown up in Germany — a civilization which is trying hard to avoid uncertainty, which is very conservative and therefore focuses on providing as many social services and as much stability as possible — these kind of thoughts are very disruptive.
Being exposed to a highly dissimilar viewpoint every bit compared to your own belief system won't alter it that rapidly.
But if, over time, yous are exposed to thoughts and beliefs that are in contradiction to your belief system, and then in that location is a chance that eventually you will get-go to question some of your existing beliefs.
Near of the time, this procedure is more than like h2o dripping on a piece of stone constantly. Eventually, the water will be able to shift the shape of the rock, but it will take a long menses of fourth dimension.
Sometimes, though, we are thrown into a radically unlike environment, which exposes united states to a completely different way of thinking so all of a sudden and with so much strength that this procedure can happen very quickly.
This could happen in many different circumstances like joining a new community of people. Reading the works of new and radically different thinkers. Or moving to some other country.
Sudden disruptions of a belief system, however, have very strong effects on one's sense of self and one'due south emotional stability.
If you are in a situation where yous suddenly become exposed to very different thoughts and beliefs which actually put your current belief organization into question, you are likely to experience emotions such as anxiety, anger, defoliation, shock and frustration.
In very desperate circumstances, your core beliefs get affected.
Cadre behavior are those which are at the very center of your own sense of self. Those beliefs that are so fundamental to who y'all are, that putting them into question would mean that you even start to question who yous are at the core of your beingness.
Culture shock, for example, is the condition that describes such a situation upon entering a dissimilar cultural surroundings.
Information technology describes a situation where nosotros are exposed to such a drastically different worldview so all of a sudden and on such a large calibration, that nosotros are forced to offset questioning some of the nearly primal assumptions which we had made about life and so far.
A disruption of your belief organization is a chance for growth
When we are facing a state of affairs where our belief organisation gets disrupted so strongly that nosotros are facing very negative emotions for a long time, we tend to retrieve that there is something wrong with us.
Facing a long period of negative emotions doesn't necessarily take to be a sign that you take a trouble. It can only be a result of external influences which have caused you to question some of your core behavior, which has subsequently caused a disruption of your belief organisation. In those circumstances, it will take time for you lot to procedure this new information to the point where it becomes integrated into your conventionalities system. Eventually, your existing beliefs volition rearrange themselves in a way that the organisation reaches congruence one time again.
However, there are some real dangers hither:
- people who think that something is wrong with them start trying to 'get rid' of these negative feelings. They don't requite themselves the space to process the new data and integrate information technology into their existing belief system. Equally a upshot, they develop a long-term identity crisis.
- people who see the new information and new beliefs as a threat will often continue to reject it altogether. In doing so, they practise not open up the space for themselves to absorb this new information and therefore proceed to have strong, negative feelings for a long menses of fourth dimension.
What is the solution for this? Well, basically it is to let go and to take this menses of confusion and anxiety for what information technology is.
When we cover the pain of the procedure and simply let information technology be, nosotros give our brain the space unconsciously piece of work on the integration of the new beliefs into our belief organization, and the rearrangement of existing behavior in ways that make synthesis betwixt two unlike viewpoints possible. Even if these unlike viewpoints are so contradictory that information technology seems impossible on outset view.
That is when existent personal growth happens. When we beginning becoming a significantly unlike person than who we used to exist. When our beliefs change and so drastically that people around us start to wonder why we accept changed and then much in such a short period of time.
3 key elements of belief systems
Homeostasis: conventionalities systems are constantly striving towards reaching a country of equilibrium. This is a country in which the elements of the organization only have contradictions that do not affect the stability of the system as a whole. A land of relative congruence.
Self-regulation: belief systems have the capability to adapt themselves to the external atmospheric condition in which they are placed. In that sense, the system is capable of reaching a state of congruence regardless of the circumstances through a constant feedback mechanism between internal beliefs and external factors.
Autopoiesis: conventionalities systems are capable of reproducing and maintaining themselves. This goes across the capability of mere self-regulation in the sense that it has the ability to change quite significantly and go significantly more complex as part of this process.
To paraphrase the inventor of the concept himself, Humberto Matuana:
"if the organisation of beliefs changes, the belief organisation as a whole changes"
In other words, when y'all are exposed to new ideas and beliefs, your conventionalities arrangement starts rearranging itself. In the process of doing so, it will evolve and change into something significantly different than what it used to be.
What does all this hateful for you?
Firstly, it means that you should not be likewise worried when you are at a stage of your life that you experience lost, dislocated, anxious or so. It may very well exist a period during which your belief organisation is restructuring itself due to things you lot've experienced, ideas you lot've been exposed to, changes in your life circumstances and so on and then along.
Of form, this doesn't hateful that y'all shouldn't exist worried nigh having a negative emotional country for an extended catamenia of fourth dimension at all. If you experience that something isn't quite correct, and if it stays that fashion for a long period of time, and then certainly seeking out professional help is the best possible option.
Secondly, it means that you should use those periods during which your belief organization is weak and in a phase of reconstruction for the sake of changing yourself for the better.
This can mean, during this period of time, that you lot could expose yourself to the right ideas and the right environment which yous think volition help you to grow in the way that you lot desire. It also means that during this catamenia of fourth dimension, y'all should be especially cogitating.
Inquire yourself questions like these:
- which were my core beliefs that I am at present starting to question? Why have I started questioning them?
- which beliefs, ideas and habits have I been exposed to recently that I really want to ingrain deeply into my psyche?
- which beliefs do I agree that are stopping me from making progress in the direction that I am looking for?
- which environments can I exposed myself to during this period of time that volition help me to grow in the direction of who I want to become?
- who was I until now? Who am I right now? Who practise I desire to become?
Thirdly, it means that when you are at a phase of stagnation, or at a stage where you do not want to be, y'all can actively betrayal yourself to environments that will trigger a state of shock for your belief system.
Expose yourself to a completely dissimilar kind of surroundings. Join a community that is very different from what you are used to. Movement to another country. Take on a job in a completely different field than you were trained in. Read books about a topic that you unremarkably would've never touched.
For well-nigh people, their belief system is this invisible force that is influencing their behavior without them noticing. Become aware of how your beliefs affect your behavior, and consciously shape how your belief system develops. Your behavior and your habits will follow.
If you lot liked this article, please do 👏 and to share it with your friends. Recollect, you can clap upwards to 50 times — information technology really makes a big difference for me.
Originally published at timrettig.net on December 7, 2017.
Source: https://medium.com/intercultural-mindset/belief-systems-what-they-are-and-how-they-affect-you-1cd87aa775ff
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