We present a theory of belief dynamics that explains the interplay between internal beliefs in people's minds and beliefs of others in their external social environments. The networks of belief theory goes beyond existing theories of belief dynamics in three ways. First, it provides an explicit connection between belief networks in individual minds and belief dynamics on social networks. The connection, absent from most previous theories, is established through people's social beliefs or perceived beliefs of others. Second, the theory recognizes that the correspondence between social beliefs and others' actual beliefs can be imperfect, because social beliefs are affected by personal beliefs as well as by the actual beliefs of others. Past theories of belief dynamics on social networks do not distinguish between perceived and actual beliefs of others. Third, the theory explains diverse belief dynamics phenomena parsimoniously through the differences in attention and the resulting felt dissonances in personal, social, and external parts of belief networks. We implement our theoretical assumptions in a computational model within a statistical physics framework and derive model predictions. We find support for our theoretical assumptions and model predictions in two large survey studies (N₁ = 973, N₂ = 669). We then derive insights about diverse phenomena related to belief dynamics, including group consensus and polarization, group radicalization, minority influence, and different empirically observed belief distributions. We discuss how the theory goes beyond different existing models of belief dynamics and outline promising directions for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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信仰网络：个人和社会层面信仰动态的综合理论。


我们提出了一种信念动态理论，它解释了人们内心的信念与他人在外部社会环境中的信念之间的相互作用。信念网络理论在三个方面超越了现有的信念动态理论。首先，它提供了个人思想中的信念网络与社交网络上的信念动态之间的明确联系。这种联系是通过人们的社会信仰或他人的感知信仰而建立的，这是大多数先前理论所没有的。其次，该理论认识到社会信念与他人实际信念之间的对应关系可能是不完美的，因为社会信念既受到个人信念的影响，也受到他人实际信念的影响。过去的社交网络信念动态理论并没有区分他人的感知信念和实际信念。第三，该理论通过注意力的差异以及由此产生的个人、社会和信念网络外部部分的不和谐感来简单地解释了不同的信念动态现象。我们在统计物理框架内的计算模型中实现我们的理论假设并得出模型预测。我们在两项大型调查研究（N₁=973，N2=669）中找到了对我们的理论假设和模型预测的支持。然后，我们深入了解与信念动态相关的各种现象，包括群体共识和两极分化、群体激进化、少数群体影响以及不同的经验观察到的信念分布。我们讨论该理论如何超越现有的不同信念动态模型，并概述未来研究的有希望的方向。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。