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Psychological correlates of certainty strength: measuring the relative influence of evidence, opinion of personal contacts & importance to self-identity

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Psychological correlates of certainty strength: measuring the relative influence of evidence, opinion of personal contacts & importance to self-identity

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF CERTAINTY STRENGTH:
MEASURING THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF EVIDENCE, OPINION OF
PERSONAL CONTACTS & IMPORTANCE TO SELF-IDENTITY

by
Jared Edward Reser
________________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(PSYCHOLOGY)

December 2009

Copyright 2009 Jared Edward Reser

ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge Dr. David Walsh who guided me throughout the
development of this manuscript. His theoretical, computational and editorial advice has
directed my progress from the beginning. I would also like to extend a warm
acknowledgement for the substantial contributions of Jian Li, Edward Lin, Carol Brown,
Steven Read, Jo Ann Farver and Paula Freund.

iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
List of Tables iv
List of Figures v
Abstract vi
Main Body 1

Bibliography 33
Appendices
Appendix A: Informed Consent 36
Appendix B: Demographics Questionnaire 37

iv
List of Tables
Table 1: List of Belief Statements for Study 1 7

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics for the Variables of Study 1 13

Table 3: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis for Study 1 15

Table 4: List of Belief Statements for Study 2 19

Table 5: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis 1 24

Table 6: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis 2 25

Table 7: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis 3 27

v
List of Figures
Figure 1: The Distribution of Individual Belief Items for Study 1 11
Figure 2: The Distribution of Individual Belief Items for Study 2 22

vi
Abstract
This research examines the psychological foundations of personal belief by measuring
how different determinants of belief formulation contribute to certainty strength.
Together, two studies collected data from over 400 undergraduate students regarding how
physical, social and religious beliefs are formulated. Participants rated their strength of
belief in these domains relative to the following determinants: the importance of
substantiating evidence, the perceived logic inherent in a belief, the importance to self-
identity, the influence of personal contacts, the social community and authority figures
and the expected permanence, perceived relevance and personal likeability of the belief.
The present research found that strength of certainty can be predicted by the quality of
empirical evidence that people can offer to support the belief, by their estimates of their
parent’s certainty in the belief and by the perceived importance of the belief to their sense
of self-identity.

1
Introduction
The purpose of the present study was to achieve a better understanding of belief
formulation by examining various determinants of certainty strength. Previous research
on belief formulation has explored how existing beliefs affect decision making and
cognition but researchers have not investigated how individuals appraise different
components of belief certainty relative to each other. This study examines the
fundamental question “why people hold the beliefs they do” by delving into the physical,
social and religious beliefs of college students and determining how the students support,
rationalize, think and feel about the beliefs they hold.
The present study has created unique ways to measure the relationships between
logical, emotional and environmental determinants of certainty strength. The logical
determinants examined include rationale, personal account, firsthand and secondhand
evidence; the emotional determinants include personal likeability, permanence and
relevance and the environmental determinants included opinion of parents and friends,
opinions of authorities and other sources of influence. These determinants were gathered
from a review of the literature on the components of belief certainty which is both scarce
and divided. Many different contributors to certainty strength have been recognized by
previous theoreticians and researchers over the years and the present study has attempted
to examine the most meaningful and compelling of these constructs.
The following literature review includes a brief description of how other
researchers have thought about how certainty strength is determined and identifies
several factors that affect belief such as: empirical evidence, competing evidence, the
influence of others, the influence of experience and bearing on self-identity.

2
Belief Revision
One of the most popular paradigms discussed in the literature on belief
formulation is the Data-oriented Belief Revision (DBR) model (Paglieri, 2005). This
model operates on the assumption that data and beliefs are two separate entities. Under
this model, data are information collected by an individual and beliefs are interpretations
of data that have been accepted as true. According to this paradigm, a large number of
logical, emotional and developmental cognitive determinants are thought to play roles in
whether data is accepted or rejected (Paglieri, 2005). Consonant with this model, it has
been shown repeatedly that at times what we believe in depends on our conscious goals
and rational thinking; however, at other times our transient motivations, subjective biases
and fleeting emotions play major roles as well (Damasio, 1994; Tversky & Kahneman,
1974).
Certainty strength has been shown to be affected by a large number of different
factors (Gilovich, 1990). Interpretation of competing beliefs can be affected inadvertently
by our liking for them, by our goals, by our moods and by our stereotypes, all without
conscious deliberation (James, 1958). Because unconscious responses can manifest
themselves in behavior without conscious intent, they can affect our “feeling of being
certain” to a very large degree without us being aware (Burton, 2008). For these reasons,
beliefs can be influenced by a variety of determinants that are often not apparent until one
takes the time to reflect (Burton, 2008). Knowledge of how beliefs can be fleeting,
whimsical and difficult to pin down influenced us to attempt to identify and then measure
several different components of belief formulation in order to see how much variation in
certainty strength each components can be shown to account for.

3
Belief Formulation
Another popular perspective on belief formulation explains that keeping
consistency among our beliefs is a basic human need and an urgent concern during belief
formulation (Schick & Vaughn, 2002). People tend to reject facts or statements that are at
odds with beliefs that they have chosen to espouse or support in the past (Schick et al.,
1995). For this reason, many people will embrace evidence that supports a held belief and
disregard evidence that conflicts in order to maintain cognitive consistency (DeNoma,
2001).
Research also shows that individuals will often maintain a belief in spite of
overwhelming amounts of conflicting evidence, and this tendency is termed
“unwarranted theory perseverance.” After performing several studies and an extensive
literature review Anderson et al., (1980) concluded that people frequently cling to beliefs
to a “considerably greater extent than is logically or normatively warranted.” Their
findings and the findings of others suggest that evidence is often not measured
judiciously and that competing beliefs and counter explanations are too often ignored or
overlooked (Kida, 2006; Schick & Vaughn, 2002).
These findings influenced us to change the way that we gathered data on the
importance of evidence. Instead of asking subjects to provide evidence to support their
stance on a subject, they were asked to provide evidence to support the truthfulness and
falseness of each belief. Subjects were then asked to rate each point of evidence in terms
of perceived quality. This allowed us to gather data concerning how people weigh
evidence for both the favoring and competing sides of a belief.

4
The Influence of Other People
James Alcock famously argued that our beliefs have their origins in the influences
of authority figures. Alcock specifically pinpoints parents as the main influences for most
people early in life (Alcock, 1995). Authority figures may also, according to Alcock and
others, influence one’s “gut feelings” because, at a young age, one does not necessarily
have sufficient empirical evidence to support his or her beliefs (Alcock, 1981). Literature
on the development of social theories supports the idea that children primarily adopt
beliefs from parents, peers, teachers and others social agents and then create a larger
proportion of their own beliefs later in life as experiences accumulate (Anderson &
Sechler, 1986; Alcock et al., 1998). This literature motivated us to add a section on the
influence of others to our questionnaire. Participants were asked to estimate the certainty
strength for specific groups of others including parents, personal contacts, the average
American and scientists. To our knowledge, this is the first time a study was able to
compare certainty strength for an individual with their perceived certainty strength of
others.
Importance to Self-identity
Beliefs that are strongly tied to one’s self-identity can be extremely difficult to
change. People strive to maintain their sense of self-identity for many reasons: it gives
them pride, a feeling of individuality and gives them a stable view of the world (Markus,
1977). Information that is consistent with one’s self-identity is seen by most people as
more credible than information that is inconsistent (Levy, 1997). Self-concept
maintenance results in the reinforcement of one’s self-concept, and causes people to try
to reject feedback or information that conflicts with their ideas about themselves

5
(Sutherland, 1992). People will go to great lengths to maintain their sense of identity.
They will engage in certain cognitive strategies (most of which they are not fully
conscious of) that include selective attention, selective memory, and selective
interpretation (Shermer, 2003). It is clear that the desire to keep our beliefs in line with
our self-concept determines what kind of feedback we seek from others and from our
environment (Gilovich, 1990).
A great deal of evidence also points toward the fact that our beliefs and attitudes
are often determined by past behavior. When our past behavior does not coincide with
our beliefs, an aversive state of “cognitive dissonance” arises forcing us to reappraise our
beliefs in terms of who we are and what we have done in the past (Festinger & Carlsmith,
1959). This observation made it evident from the beginning that it was imperative for this
study to include in our research measures that look at importance to self-idenity.
An article by Castelfranchi (1996) offers a substantial review of the literature on
self-concept and concludes by suggesting three measures of self-identity: relevance,
permanence and likeability. Castelfranchi argues that these three constructs are the main
emotional determinants that guide us through the process of accepting or rejecting beliefs
and that they ultimately contribute strongly to certainty. These three constructs seemed to
be very compelling and a section of our research is dedicated to analyzing their relative
roles in determining certainty strength.
Empirical Evidence and Logical Reasoning
An extensive literature on the subject of “belief revision” has elaborated on two
approaches: the foundations and coherence models (Doyle, 1992). According to
foundations theory, beliefs are maintained if they are reasonable, rational and justified

6
and beliefs are abandoned as an individual adopts evidence to the contrary. The
coherence approach, in contrast, contends that an individual will accept a belief if it
logically coheres with other closely held beliefs pertaining to self. These two models are
thought to be able to coexist and lead to the hypotheses presented in the current study:
that availability of rational and justified evidence will combine with importance of the
belief to self-identity to determine certainty strength.
Most people tend to think that the manner in which they choose what to believe is
logical but there is evidence suggesting that many people hold beliefs that are not
supported by evidence or well-reasoned argument (Kida, 2006). One might think that
people derive their beliefs from experience and that the beliefs that they choose to
espouse are those that are consistent with sensory perceptions, rational reasoning and
careful deliberation. A growing body of literature indicates that our beliefs and certainty
in them may be guided more strongly by emotional construals, subconscious objectives
and other constructs tied to self-identity (Travis & Aronson, 2007). There have been
many studies that have looked at the role of evidence and reason in certainty strength
(Schoomer, 1990) yet these do not include the important “third variable” of personal
identity concerns. Because little or no research has examined how specific beliefs are
self-evaluated in terms of how rational, justified and important to self-identity they are,
we have chosen to do so here.
Study 1
Many of the articles cited above rely on speculation about belief formulation
without support from empirical evidence (eg: Paglieri, 2005; Doyle, 1994; Pennington,
1993). Some of them use empirical research to explore how existing beliefs affect

7
decision-making and the thought process (e.g., Geraerts et al., 2008; Anderson & Sechler,
1986, Anderson et al., 1980). However, researchers have not examined how evidence,
self-identity and other determinants influence the strength of individuals’ beliefs. In order
to build on the current knowledge about certainty strength through exploratory measures
we carefully designed a questionnaire to assess how people are affected by evidence and
self-identity when taken together.
Two studies were conducted. In the first study, a questionnaire was administered
to 157 undergraduate students in order to assess the role of 4 different determinants on
the strength of their beliefs. Subjects were asked to provide responses about these 4
determinants relative to 12 belief statements. The 12 belief statements used in this study
are shown in Table 1. Three categories of beliefs were assessed: 1) beliefs about physical
existence, 2) beliefs about social issues, and 3) beliefs about religion. The individual
beliefs, in the order of presentation in the questionnaire, are listed in Table 1, below.

Table 1: List of Belief Statements for Study 1
Beliefs about Physical Existence
1. Gorillas are primates that are found in Africa.
2. Gravity is a force that draws objects toward the earth.
3. Bigfoot or Sasquatch is a large primate native to North America.
4. UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft that have visited Earth.
Beliefs About Religion
5. Mohammad was a real person who lived and founded the Muslim religion.
6. Jesus Christ was a real person who lived and founded the Christian religion.

8

Table 1, continued
7. Both Heaven and Hell exist and provide eternal rewards or punishments for deeds done during one’s
lifetime.
8. A Supreme Being or “God” exists in some form.
Beliefs About Social Issues
9. People are subject to the laws and government of their nation.
10. Humans are sociable beings that depend on other humans for their survival.
11. All people have equal rights in society regardless of race or gender.
12. Women have extremely limited access to the highest leadership position in society.

As described above, subjects were asked to consider each of 4 determinants
relative to these 12 belief statements to assess the contribution of each to the strength of
certainty in the statement. The determinants were: 1) the quality of the evidence that
supports the truthfulness, 2) the quality of the evidence that supports the falseness, 3)
importance of the belief to self-identity if it is true and 4) importance of the belief to self-
identity if it is false.
We expected to find that evidence and importance to self identity interacted in
predictable ways, mainly that: 1) the quality of physical evidence respondents could offer
to support or refute a physical belief would be the strongest predictor of certainty
strength, 2) the respondents’ importance to self-identity would be the most important
predictor of religious belief and 3) both the quality of physical evidence and importance
to self-identity would contribute to predicting social beliefs.

9
Participants
Participants were volunteers recruited from undergraduates at a private research
university, the University of Southern California (USC). All participants were members
of the undergraduate psychology subject pool and volunteered in order to receive class
credit. Individuals from this sample of convenience chose to participate in this study
after being given the opportunity by their professor.
A USC institutional review board application, which caused us to meet strict
guidelines for respect and confidentiality, was submitted and approved. A consent form
described the study, its intentions and the associated risks (see Appendix A). Every
participant indicated that they understood and agreed to the details of the study. No harm
to any participant resulted from participation in the study.
Procedure
A questionnaire was administered after participants first read over a consent form
and completed a demographics questionnaire. The total package of materials took
students approximately 25 minutes to complete.
Demographics
A demographics questionnaire asked participants for their age, sex, level of
educational achievement, academic major, hobbies, ethnicity, religious affiliation and
three questions regarding their scientific, social and religious background (see Appendix
B). The questions were as follows: How well has your education prepared you to think
scientifically? To what extent are you a social person? How important is religious faith to
you? Participants were asked to circle a number, 0 through 5, that best describes their
response to each question.

10
Beliefs Questionnaire
The questionnaire had three sections. The first section asked participants to rate
the strength of their belief for the 12 items shown in Table 1 using an 11-point scale. The
scale was anchored on the low end with a value of “-5” which indicated they were
confident the item was false, and at the high end by “+5” which indicated they were
confident the item was true. The midpoint of 0 indicated that the participants were
uncertain as to whether the belief is true or false. For example, if the belief being tested
was, “The sun is the center of the solar system,” then a participant, who is confident, but
not absolutely certain that this belief is true, might circle a 4 on the scale.
The second section of the questionnaire asked participants to list self-generated
evidence in support of their personal assessment for each of the 12 beliefs. After the
participants had listed evidence in support of both the truthfulness and the falseness of the
belief, they were instructed to rate how strong they think each of their listed points of
evidence were in supporting their opinion. They used a 6-point scale with 0 indicating
very insignificant evidence and 5 indicating very significant evidence.
The third section of the questionnaire assessed the importance of the belief to the
individual’s sense of self-identity. They used a 6-point scale to twice rate how important
each belief was to their sense of self-identity. First they rated how important the belief
was to their sense of self-identity assuming it was true, and then they rated how important
the belief was assuming it was false. A rating of 0 was used to indicate the belief was
very unimportant to their sense of self-identity, and a 5 to indicate it was very important.

11
Results and Discussion for Study 1
The results summarized in Figure 1 and Tables 2 and 3 show that we were
successful in choosing a set of 12 items for our first study that produce wide differences
in average certainty strength and provided considerable variability between people.
Figure 1 below shows the varied distribution of beliefs for each of the 12 statements in
boxplot form. The y axis gives the certainty strength between -5 and 5 and the x axis lists
each of the 12 statements. Individual beliefs on the x axis are indicated by key code
words that are easily identifiable from the list of statements in Table 1. The median of
subjects’ responses is given by the horizontal black bar in the middle of the yellow boxes.
The interquartile range is represented by the yellow boxplot, the whiskers designate the
upper and lower bounds of scores and the circles and asterisks designate outliers.

Figure 1: The Distribution of Individual Belief Items for Study 1

Note. The length of the box represents the difference between the 25th and 75th percentiles. The horizontal
line inside the box represents the median. Whiskers are shown as the lines from the ends of the box to the
largest and smallest values that are not outliers. Open circles are outliers, which are between 1.5 and 3 box-
lengths from the 75th percentile or 25th percentile. The extreme values are marked with stars, which were
more than 3 box-lengths from the 2nd nearest quartile.

12
Table 2 shows the mean and standard deviation for each of the measures collected
in the questionnaire. The first column of Table 2 lists the 12 different belief statements.
The second column shows the mean and standard deviation (in parentheses) for the
dependent variable of certainty strength. This information supplements the median
values for certainty strength shown in the boxplots of Figure 1. The third and fourth
columns show the mean and standard deviation of the quality of evidence that subjects
offered to support the truthfulness or falseness of each item. These numbers were
obtained by taking the sum of the quality ratings subjects provided for the set of
evidentiary statements they offered to support the truthfulness and falseness of their
beliefs. Thus, a subject who offered two points of evidence for the truthfulness of a
belief, and rated the quality of both points as “4” would have a score of 8, whereas a
subject who offered three points with a rated quality of “3” would have a score of 9 for
this measure. The fifth column shows the mean and standard deviation of the difference
scores which were obtained by subtracting the quality rating of evidence for the falseness
of a belief from the quality rating of evidence for the truthfulness of that belief. Thus,
column five reflects the mean balance of evidence for and against the truthfulness of a
belief. Columns six and seven provide the mean ratings of the importance of each belief
to the subjects’ sense of self-identity, if the belief was true and if the belief was false,
respectively.

13
Table 2: Descriptive Statistics for the Variables of Study 1

Note: Numbers in each cell are the Mean and (Standard Deviation) (N = 157).

At the high end, gravity (M=4.3, SD=1.2) and that all people have equal rights
(M=4.4, SD=1.7) were believed most strongly. The mean score for these two items
approached the maximum possible scale score of +5 for truthfulness. In contrast, at the
low end of our items, the existence of Bigfoot (M=-1.9, SD=2.9) and UFOs (M=-1.8,
SD=2.7) were believed to be false as indicated by the negative mean ratings. However,
the large standard deviations (SD) indicate there were considerable differences across
Statement
Certainty
strength
Evidence
for the
truthfulness
Evidence
for the
falseness
Difference
score
Importance
to self-
identity if
true
Importance
to self-
identity if
false
Gorillas 2.0(2.3) 3.1(2.6) 1.6(1.8) 1.5(2.9) 1.9(1.5) 3.2(1.7)
Gravity 4.3(1.2) 4.9(3.0) 1.0(1.6) 3.9(3.3) 3.4(1.5) 3.6(1.6)
Bigfoot -1.9(2.9) 1.4(2.0) 3.2(2.7) -1.8(3.0) 1.8(1.6) 1.3(1.4)
UFO -1.8(2.7) 2.0(2.2) 3.5(2.6) -1.5(2.7) 3.1(1.6) 1.8(1.5)
Mohammad 2.4(2.2) 3.0(2.3) 1.6(2.1) 1.4(2.7) 2.4(1.5) 2.3(1.6)
Jesus 2.8(2.6) 4.0(3.2) 1.7(2.2) 2.2(3.7) 3.5(1.7) 3.3(1.8)
Heaven 0.6(3.3) 2.6(2.3) 2.8(2.8) -.2(3.5) 4.0(1.4) 3.4(1.8)
God 2.8(2.7) 3.8(3.1) 2.3(2.4) 1.4(3.7) 4.2(1.3) 3.7(1.7)
Law 3.4(1.8) 4.0(2.5) 1.9(2.2) 2.0(2.6) 3.7(1.3) 3.8(1.3)
Sociable 3.7(1.7) 4.7(3.2) 1.5(1.9) 3.2(3.0) 3.6(1.3) 3.4(1.3)
Rights 4.4(1.7) 4.3(2.9) 0.9(1.6) 3.4(3.2) 4.1(1.2) 4.1(1.4)
Women 2.0(2.7) 4.0(2.9) 2.0(2.2) 2.0(3.2) 3.8(1.1) 3.7(1.3)

14
respondents in their beliefs about the existence of UFOs and Bigfoot. However, the
largest individual differences in beliefs were for the existence of heaven and hell, which
had a SD of 3.3, but mean certainty strength of only 0.6.
More informative, are the results of stepwise regression analyses used to test the
hypotheses concerning the role that empirical evidence and sense of self-identity play in
providing a foundation for people’s beliefs. Twelve separate stepwise multiple
regression analyses were conducted, one for each belief statement. Each of the regression
analyses used the strength of respondents’ belief as the dependent variable. Six
independent variables were entered in stepwise fashion into each equation. These
variables were: (1) the quality of the evidence offered for the truthfulness of the belief,
(2) the quality of the evidence offered for the falseness of the belief, (3) the difference
between the strength of the evidence offered for the truthfulness and falseness of the
belief, (4) the importance of the truthfulness of the belief for self-identity, (5) the
importance of the falseness of the belief for self-identity and (6) the difference between
the importance of the truthfulness and falseness of the belief for self-identity.
Table 3 summarizes the findings for all twelve stepwise analyses. The rows in
Table 3 present the results of the stepwise regression for each belief. The columns of
Table 3 represent five of the six independent variables that were allowed to enter into the
equations. The difference in self-identity importance between the truthfulness and
falseness of each belief was not a significant predictor of certainty for any belief, and was
left out of Table 3.
The numbers in each cell of Table 3 present the beta and R
2
(in parentheses) for
each of the independent variables that were significant predictors of certainty in a belief.

15
The superscripts on these numbers indicate the order of entry of that variable into the
equation and thus their relative significance. Finally, the last column shows the total R
2

accounted for by all of the independent variables that entered the equation for each belief.
The raw or unstandardized Bs are left out of this table along with the standard deviations
because of space limitations.

Table 3: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis for Study 1

Note. Numbers before the brackets are the standardized regression coefficients (β). Numbers in brackets are
the R square change associated with the predictor. Superscript numbers indicate the order of entering in the
stepwise regression. The R
2
shown in the last column is the total ratio of variance explained by all the
predictors.
** p < .001

The first row of Table 3 shows that only the difference in quality of evidence
entered as a significant predictor of the certainty in the existence of gorillas (beta of .44,
Statement
Evidence
for the
truthfulness
Evidence
for the
falseness
Difference
score
Self-
identity
importance
if true
Self-
identity
importance
if false R
2

Gorillas .44(.19)
1
.19**
Gravity .22(.05)
2
-
.33(.11)
1
.15(.02)
3
.18**
Bigfoot .43(.08)
2
.80(.23)
1
.31**
UFO .27(.04)
2
.58 (.16)
1
.20**
Mohammad .58(.37)
1
.13(.02)
2
.38**
Jesus
-
.15(.02)
3
.47(.35)
1
.15(.02)
2
.39**
Heaven

.49(.27)
1
.21(.04)
2

.32**
God .29(.08)
2
.33(.29)
1
.23(.04)
3
.41**
Law .35(.11)
1
.20(.04)
2
.15**
Sociable -.41(.07)
2
.66(.12)
1
.17(.03)
3
.21**
Rights

.27(.08)
1
.19(.04)
2
.11**
Women -.26(.03)
2
.68(.24)
1
.27**

16
R
2
of .19, superscript of 1), and of course this one predictor accounted for 19% of the
variance in certainty, as shown by the total R
2
. In contrast, the third row of Table 3
shows that two predictors entered the equation to explain the variance in certainty of the
existence of Bigfoot: the difference between quality of evidence true and false entered
first (beta .80, R
2
of .23, superscript of 1); and quality of evidence for the falseness
entered second (beta .43, R
2
of .08, superscript of 2). Together, these two predictors
accounted for 31% of the variance in certainty about Bigfoot’s existence.
For 9 of the 12 beliefs, as can be seen in Table 3, the variable that entered first
into the stepwise regression to predict certainty strength was the difference between the
quality of the evidence the respondents offered for the truthfulness and that for the
falseness of the belief. This difference in quality of evidence accounted for a high of
37% and 35% of the variance, respectively, in the belief that Mohammed and Jesus Christ
were real people, to lows of 8% of the variance in the belief in the existence of God and
of equal rights.
The findings indicate that one of the most important determinants of the strength
of a person’s certainty in religious beliefs was the importance of that belief to sense of
self-identity. This makes intuitive sense. For example, a person who has been
acculturated into a strong religious faith and who organizes their sense of self and life’s
purpose around that faith, will most likely believe strongly in God’s existence whether or
not they have personally observed evidence to support that belief. In fact, Table 3
indicates that importance to identity plays a large role in the strength of religious beliefs.
The only belief for which the importance to self-identity entered first into the stepwise
regression was belief in God. In fact, the importance to self-identity if true factored first

17
and with a beta of .33 and an R
2
of .29. For each of the other eleven beliefs one of the
three variables related to evidence entered first into the regression analysis.
The results for the importance to one’s sense of self-identity ended up almost
exactly as predicted. Importance to self-identity was most informative as a predictor of
certainty strength for items in the religious and social arenas but not in the areas of
physical existence (with the exception of Gravity where it factored in 3
rd
under
importance to self-identity if true). Furthermore, importance to self-identity only entered
into the regression equation first in the case of belief in God. Excluding belief in God
(where importance to self-identify accounted for 29% of the variance) only 2- 4% of the
variance in certainty strength was predicted by importance to self-identity for other
beliefs in the social and religious domains.
Item 2, gravity, was the only item where a positive score for the quality of
evidence for truthfulness entered as significant. This could suggest many things but may
suggest that a great deal of empirical evidence exists to support the existence of gravity
relative to the other beliefs. As pointed out above, respondents believed very highly in
this belief, and so we decided to drop them in Study 2 because there is very little
variability left to be explained by other factors. We also dropped items 5 and 6, Jesus and
Mohammad, because they seem to be based on empirical evidence of historical nature.
On the other hand, few people have had personal observations of UFOs or
Bigfoot, and just as few know of any physical evidence to support their existence. Fewer
still are people who have been acculturated into belief systems where UFOs or Bigfoot
play any role in their self-identity, leading to the prediction that people’s beliefs in these
phenomena should be quite weak, and the weakness of those beliefs should be consistent

18
with little perceived physical evidence and little importance to self-identity in the people
who hold these weak beliefs. Neither Bigfoot nor UFOs seemed to have much bearing on
importance to self-identity as nothing related to self-identity proved significant in these
areas. Interestingly, the quality of evidence for falseness turned out to be positive,
significant factors for only two beliefs; the existence of Bigfoot and the existence of
UFOs. The beta for Bigfoot was .43, and the beta for UFOs was .27, by far the highest
betas for the quality of evidence supporting the falseness.
Study 2
The data and findings from the first study were used to revise and improve the
questionnaire for Study 2. The questionnaire used in Study 2 features the addition of new
determinants, also 6 of the original belief statements were taken out.
In the first study participants were asked to write down evidence they could think
of to support the truthfulness and falseness of each belief in separate columns of a lined
page, and to assign a number from 0 to 6 to indicate how strong they thought that
evidence was. This was a time and energy intensive process to complete for all 12
beliefs. Questionnaire 2 only featured 6 belief statements to reduce the amount of time
needed to complete the questionnaire. Our hope was that this less time and energy
intensive measure would yield a better and more consistent estimate of the contribution
of evidentiary information to certainty strength.
The same categories of beliefs statements, assessed in Study 1, were examined
again: physical, social and religious. This time though, instead of four, there were only
two beliefs in each of the three belief categories. We included the beliefs that showed the
most variability in certainty strength within each category so that we would have more

19
power to explore the factors that account for differences in belief strength. The individual
questions, in the order of presentation in the questionnaire, are listed in Table 4 below.

Table 4: List of Belief Statements for Study 2
Beliefs About Physical Existence
1. Gorillas are large animals that are found on Earth.
2. Bigfoot or Sasquatch is a large animal found on Earth.
Beliefs About Religion
3. Both Heaven and Hell exist and provide eternal rewards or punishments for deeds
done during one’s lifetime.
4. A Supreme Being or “God” exists in some form.
Beliefs About Social Issues
5. People are subject to the laws and government of their nation.
6. Humans are sociable beings that depend on other humans for their survival.

Subjects were asked to consider a new set of determinants relative to these 6
belief statements to determine the contribution of each to the strength of certainty. The
same determinants measured in Study 1 were used in Study 2, but new determinants were
added. Also, importance of the belief to self-identity was split into three categories listed
below.
To summarize, the determinants for Study 2 were: 1) the quality of the evidence
that supports the truthfulness, 2) the quality of evidence that supports the falseness, 3)
estimates of certainty in the statement for four groups of others: parents, personal

20
contacts, average Americans and scientists and 4) importance to self-identity, which was
broken down into relevance, permanence and likeability.
The participants were recruited and briefed in the same manner described above
for Study 1. The experimental procedure was also as described above with the exception
that a revised beliefs questionnaire was used.
Again, we expected to find: that the quality of evidence will play a strong role in
physical beliefs; that self-identity will play the strongest role in religious beliefs; and that
a mix between physical evidence and self-identity will predict certainty strength in the
social beliefs.
Beliefs Questionnaire
The second questionnaire was developed from the one used in Study 1 but
features several changes. This questionnaire had four sections but only 6 instead of 12
beliefs statements were assessed. The first section asked participants to rate the strength
of their belief for the 6 topics chosen for the study. Next, they were asked to estimate the
certainty strength for: 1) their parents, 2) their five closest personal contacts, 3) the
average American and finally for 5) scientists. The questionnaire asked students to use a
7-point scale to indicate the strength of belief. The scale was anchored on the low end
with a value of “0” which indicated they were confident the item was false and at the
high end by “6” which indicated they were confident the item was true. The midpoint of
3 indicated that the participants were uncertain as to whether the belief was true or false.
The second section of Questionnaire 2 was taken from Questionnaire 1 and asked
participants to list and then rate self-generated evidence in support of their personal
assessment for each of the 6 beliefs.

21
In the third section, new to this study, participants were asked to rate the influence
of different sources of information on their beliefs. These sources included personal
accounts, secondary source evidence, social consensus and logic and reason. Students
used a 7-point scale to rate the importance of each of these sources of information as
support for their belief. Scale values ranged from 0 indicating “a very insignificant
source” to 6 indicating a “very significant source.”
The final section of Questionnaire 2 assessed the importance of the belief to the
individual. Unlike Study 1, importance was divided into 3 subcategories: likeability,
permanence and relevance. This section of the questionnaire also used a 7-point scale: 0
being very unlikeable, impermanent or irrelevant and 6 being very likeable, permanent or
relevant. The three facets of personal importance were defined on the questionnaire as
follows. Likeability: How much you personally like your belief. Permanence: How
stable, and unlikely to change, is your belief. Relevance: How important or relevant the
belief is to your sense of self-identity; the degree to which your world would be turned
upside down if you were to find out that your belief was wrong.
Results and Discussion for Study 2
Again, the data show we were successful in choosing a set of 6 items for our
second study that produce wide differences in average certainty strength and provide
considerable variability between people in the strength of their beliefs. Figure 2 below
shows the distribution of certainty for each of the 6 statements in boxplot form. Again
the y axis gives the certainty strength between 0 and 6 and the x axis lists each of the 6
statements. Individual beliefs on the x axis are indicated by key code words that are
easily identifiable from the list of statements in Table 4. The median of subjects’

22
responses is given by the horizontal black bar in the middle of the yellow boxes. The
interquartile range is represented by the yellow boxplot, the whiskers designate the upper
and lower bounds of scores and the circles and asterisks designate outliers.

Figure 2: The Distribution of Individual Belief Items for Study 2

A comparison of Figures 1 and 2 shows that the subjects of Study 1 and 2 gave
very similar ratings of certainty strength for the 6 beliefs that were common to both
questionnaires. In both figures the median belief in gorillas was high, belief in Bigfoot is
low, the belief in heaven hovers around the middle indicating uncertainty, and the three
others, God, laws and rights are all relatively high. The replication of these results shows

23
that the self-report questionnaires had a high degree of replicability for the same items
administered to different samples using slightly different rating scales.
Again, multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the influence of the
different determinants on certainty strength. Three separate sets of 6 stepwise multiple
regression equations were used, one for each belief statement, in order to understand how
evidence, others’ beliefs and self-identity affected certainty strength. The outcome of
these 3 separate regression analyses is detailed in Tables 5, 6 and 7 that follow.
The first number given in each cell of the following 3 tables is the beta value; the
second (in parentheses) gives the R
2.
These values are given for each of the independent
variables that were significant predictors of certainty in belief. Each statistic given is
statistically significant at the .01 level. The superscripts on these numbers indicate the
order of entry of that variable into the equation. Finally, the last column shows the total
R
2
accounted for by all of the independent variables that entered the equation for a
particular belief.
In Table 5, the dependent variable was the strength of a respondent’s certainty for
that item and the independent variables were the difference in evidence for and against
the belief, and the elements of importance to self-identity (likeability, permanence and
relevance). The underlying logic behind the choice of variables for this table is as
follows. This regression analysis looks at the difference in quality of evidence for the
truthfulness versus the falseness for each statement relative to the three components of
self-identity. This replicates what was done in Study 1 and shows that the balance of
evidence and some components of self-identity proved to be good predictors in both

24
studies. The fact that these findings are similar across studies shows the stability of
influence that evidence and self-identity concerns have on belief certainty.

Table 5: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis 1

Note. Numbers before the brackets are the standardized regression coefficients (β). Numbers in brackets are
the R square change associated with the predictor. Superscript numbers indicate the order of entering in the
stepwise regression. The R
2
shown in the last column is the total ratio of variance explained by all the
predictors.
** p < .001

The results on the importance to self-identity of the existence of God replicated
the findings in Study 1. Actually, 32 % (.01, likeability+ .31 relevance) of the variance in
the belief in God was explained by two of the types of self-identity, the most of any
belief. Again importance to self-identity was a significant predictor of certainty strength
for both religious items where the predictors explained 12% (for heaven) and 32% (for
God) of the variance, the most explained for any of the items. Participants indicated that
the existence of gorillas and Bigfoot were not relevant in their lives; that the existence of
gorillas was estimated to be the most permanent of the beliefs (beta of .27, R
2
of .08), and
that the existence of Heaven (beta of .14, R
2
of .02) and God (beta of .13, R
2
of .01) were
Statement Difference Likeability Permanence Relevance R
2

Gorilla .19(.04)
2
.27(.08)
1
.12**
Bigfoot .17(.03)
2
-.24(.07)
1

.10*
Heaven .41(.20)
1
.14(.02)
3
.25(.10)
2
.32**
God .31(.14)
2
.13(.01)
3
.41(.31)
1
.46**
Laws .28(.09)
1
.21(.04)
2
.14**
Social .20(.05)
1
.16(.03)
2
.08**

25
both relatively very likeable. Certainly, it is incorrect to say that these results prove that
some ideas were more permanent or likeable than others. The betas and R
2
only indicate
that as the likeability for belief in God and Heaven increased in a participant’s ratings, so
too did the certainty strength of belief for them.

In Table 6, the dependent variable was the strength of a participants’ certainty for
the item and the independent variables were the participants’ estimates for the beliefs for
parents, friends etc.).

Table 6: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis 2

Note. Numbers before the brackets are the standardized regression coefficients (β). Numbers in brackets are
the R square change associated with the predictor. Superscript numbers indicate the order of entering in the
stepwise regression. The R
2
shown in the last column is the total ratio of variance explained by all the
predictors.
** p < .001

The first row of Table 6 shows that only parents’ (beta .72, R
2
.69, superscript 1)
and scientists’ (beta of .18, R
2
.02, superscript 2) opinions were significant predictors of
the certainty in the existence of gorillas and these two predictors together accounted for
Statement Parent’s Personal contact Average American Scientists R
2

Gorilla .72(.69)
1
.18(.02)
2
.71**
Bigfoot .52(.59)
1
.20(.02)
3
.19(.04)
2
.65**.
Heaven .57(.45)
1
.19(.04)
3
-.19(.03)
2
.13(.02)
4
.53**
God .55(.46)
1
.25(.04)
2
-.20(.04)
3
.13(.02)
4
.55**
Laws .42(.43)
1
.31(.07)
2
-.10(.01)
4
.24(.04)
3
.55**
Social .58(.40)
1
.21(.02)
3
-.20(.02)
2
.44**

26
71% of the variance in certainty as shown by the total R
2
. In contrast, the fourth row of
Table 6 shows that all four predictors entered the equation to explain the variance in
certainty about the existence of God: the opinion of the parents entered first (beta .55, R
2
.46, superscript of 1); the opinion of personal contacts entered second (beta .25, R
2
.04,
superscript of 2); the opinion of the average American entered third (beta -.20, R
2
.04,
superscript of 3); and the opinion of scientists entered fourth (beta .13, R
2
.02, superscript
of 4). Together, these four predictors accounted for 55% of the variance in certainty about
God’s existence. Table 6 also showed a negative beta for average Americans for four of
the beliefs, Heaven (-.19), God (-.20), Laws (-.10) and Social (-.20). This negative beta
indicates that the individual’s own belief in God went down by .20 standard deviations
for each 1.0 increase in their perceptions of the strength of the average American’s belief
in God.
For each of the 6 beliefs, as can be seen in Table 6, the variable that entered first
into the stepwise regression to predict certainty strength was the estimated certainty
strength of the parents. This variable for parents accounted for a high of 69% of the
variance in the belief in gorillas, and a low of 40% of the variance in the belief that
people are sociable beings. You may remember that the difference in quality of evidence
entered first in the stepwise regression in Study 1 and yet the betas for each item were
much lower. This indicates that parents’ opinion is a stronger predictor of certainty
strength than the difference in quality of evidence. In fact, it is clear that the betas and R
2
change are much smaller for evidence differences in both Study 1 and 2, as compared to
those for parents’ certainty.

27
In Table 7, the dependent variable was again, the strength of certainty and the
independent variables were: 1) the balance of evidence, 2) the sources of influence and 3)
the elements of importance to self-identity. This table combines the two sets of variables
from Tables 5 and 6 into one equation to see which predictors are the most important
when everything is entered together.

Table 7: Summary of Stepwise Regression Analysis 3

Note. Numbers before the brackets are the standardized regression coefficients (β).
Numbers in brackets are the R square change associated with the predictor. Superscript numbers indicate
the order of entering in the stepwise regression. The R
2
shown in the last column is the total ratio of
variance explained by all the predictors.
** p < .001

When the sources of influence and the components of self-identity are analyzed
together using regression it is clear that parent’s certainty strength has the highest betas
for any of the predictors. It also accounts for the largest amount of variance in predicting
the participants’ certainty strength. Personal contacts also prove to be good predictors,
Belief Parent’s
Personal
contact
Average
Amer. Scientist Diff. Rele. R
2

Gorilla .72(.69)
1
.18(.02)
2
.71**
Bigfoot .51(.59)
1
.18(.02)
3
.19(.04)
2
.65**
Heaven .49(.45)
1
.15(.02)
5
-
.18(.03)
3
.25(.07)
2
.17(.02)
4
.59**
God .37(.46)
1
.19(.03)
4
-
.14(.02)
5
.14(.02)
6
.22(.06)
3
.30(.10)
2
.67**
Laws .40(.43)
1
.29(.07)
2
-
.11(.01)
5
.24(.04)
3
.11(.01)
4
.56**
Social .58(.40)
1
.21(.02)
3
-
.20(.02)
2

.44**

28
whereas each of the significant betas for the certainty strength of the average American
was negative. This negative trend for the average American shows that the subjects
assumed that other Americans think very differently than they do about all of the items
with the exception of the physical existence items.
It is interesting to compare and contrast the betas and amount of variance that
evidence, self-identity, and belief of others’ contribute to predicting certainty strength.
When all of these independent variables are entered into a single prediction equation, it is
the estimated beliefs of others’ that is the best predictor. The balance of evidence and the
importance to self-identity prove to be less consistently significant predictors.
General Discussion
The results from Study 1 and Study 2 supported our expectations that strength of
certainty in beliefs is predicted by the quality of empirical evidence participants can offer,
the importance of the belief to their self-identity, and what they think their parents and
other close associates believe. Moreover, in line with our predictions, we found
differences in the importance of these predictors across physical, social and religious
beliefs.
One question we wanted to address with this study is whether people are logical
and rational deliberators who rely on what they take to be empirical evidence to
formulate their beliefs. The findings suggest that this is partly true. In Study 1, the
participants’ ratings of the quality of evidence had a strong, positive relationship with
their belief strength. This relationship was much stronger than the positive relationship
between importance to self-identity and belief strength. In fact, both studies showed that
self-reported empirical evidence is a stronger factor in predicting the strength of the

29
belief than the importance to self-identity, which is only moderately contributive. In
Study 1, even though each of the determinants is important in specific instances, the best
indicator of the strength of certainty was the difference between the quality of evidence
for the truthfulness and that of the falseness. Study 2 replicated these findings. Again, in
Study 2, the quality of evidence proved to be a stronger predictor than the importance to
self-identity with the exception of belief in God.
These empirical findings coincide with the theoretical expectations of other
researchers (Sutherland, 1992; Kida, 2006) that people will try to base their beliefs on
what they think is solid, quality evidence. It is probably not possible to surmise if the
evidence that participants rated as high quality is truly strong, logical evidence in support
of a belief. The evidence that participants self-generated could have been faulty or biased,
and it is possible that their beliefs are unwarranted on the basis of good evidence, a
phenomenon that is thought to be widespread in belief research (Anderson et al., 1990).
Although it may be impossible to obtain an objective measure of quality for each instance
of self-generated evidence given by our subjects, we do have a reliable record of how
each subject perceives the quality of their evidence. Furthermore, we know that perceived
high quality of evidence turned out to be one of the strongest predictors of belief strength
in our data.
In Study 2 we introduced a new measure in an attempt to determine how the
perceived beliefs of others would compare, in predictive capacity, to quality of evidence.
This time subjects gave estimates for the belief strength of their parents, personal contacts
and the average American for each belief and these data were entered into the regression
equation. The estimates for belief strength of the average American varied negatively

30
with participants’ estimates whereas the estimated belief strength for personal contacts
and parents were strong, positive predictors. We were surprised to see that the estimates
of parents’ beliefs proved to be the strongest predictor of all. In fact, Study 2 showed that
the influence of personal contacts was generally a better predictor than quality of
evidence and that the influence from one’s parents was actually far better than either.
This finding corroborates the speculations of other researchers (Anderson & Sechler,
1986; Alcock, 1995; Fine, 2006) that emphasize the influential effects of personal
contacts and especially parents in decision making and belief formulation.
In Study 1 and 2, the strength of belief in God held a strong positive relationship
with self-identity. In fact, the majority of people reported that their sense of self-identity
would be strongly affected both if God were proven to exist and if God were proven to
not exist. The findings of Study 2 corroborate this and suggest that most of this
importance to self-identity can be explained by the relevance to self. In studies 1 and 2,
people were certain of their beliefs in the social and religious domains, regardless of
whether quality empirical evidence could be presented to support their particular belief.
In the domain of physical existence, we found that people were only certain of the beliefs
that could actually be bolstered by empirical evidence (such as gorillas and gravity), but,
with unknown beliefs (such as Bigfoot and UFOs), individuals seemed to lack certainty
because of the absence of physical and anecdotal evidence.
There are certain limitations inherent in using a questionnaire. Since we have not
manipulated an independent variable, we cannot be sure if the relationships we have
found are causal, nor can we be certain of the direction of the relationships. While we
think higher quality of evidence, higher importance to self-identity, and higher belief

31
strength of parents leads a participant to have stronger certainty in their beliefs, the
correlation methods employed leave open the possibility that the relationships are
reversed. In other words, it is possible that those with strong certainty in their beliefs are
more motivated to offer evidence to support them, find those certainty beliefs as essential
to their self-identity, and project those same strong beliefs on to those around them. In
either case, we have presented strong evidence about the nature of the relationships
between our variables.
Despite the fact that the strongest relationship in this study was between estimate
of parents’ belief and personal belief strength, participants may not have been truly
influenced by their parents’ actual beliefs, but instead, they may simply have been
assuming that their parents believe what they believe. This possibility, that participants
project their beliefs onto their parents, represents a limitation in this study but does not
prevent us from drawing a specific and firm generalization. Namely, participants seem to
reliably agree with what they think their parents believe. Continued research should
include the parents of participants in order to see what the parents really believe and if
children accurately understand and estimate the beliefs of their parents.
The results of both studies showed that quality of empirical evidence, the opinions
of parents and personal contacts and importance to self-identity, acted in additive and
compensating ways to account for the variation in strength of certainty in physical, social
and religious areas of thought. This type of research should be done more extensively
and be administered to larger samples. The reasons that people state to justify their
beliefs should be analyzed more carefully in order to better understand how people
support their beliefs. Certainly, more research in this area of how people formulate and

32
justify their beliefs is needed in order to understand if people are rational and if their
beliefs are justifiable.

33
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36
Appendix A: Informed Consent

Belief Questionnaire:

The following questionnaire examines people’s beliefs about a few elements of the
physical, social and religious world. We estimate that it will take only 30 minutes for you
to complete and all of your answers will be anonymous. There are four sections to the
questionnaire and each has detailed directions of what we would like you to do. It is
important that you complete the four sections in the order in which they are presented, so
please don’t jump ahead to a latter section before completing an earlier one.

You participation in this study is completely voluntary and you are free to stop
participating at anytime, even though you may have initially agreed to participate or you
may choose to not answer individual items. However, we will only be able to use your
responses if you complete every item and carefully follow directions.

If you have questions about completing any of the items we ask that you first go back and
reread the instructions for that section and review the example items. If you are unclear
after reviewing the directions, then ask the person who is present and overseeing this
study for clarification.

Carol Brown, Jian Li, Edward Lin, Jared Reser and Professor David Walsh of the
University of Southern California are conducting this study. Professor Walsh can be
reached by phone at 213-740-2275 or email at dwalsh@usc.edu.

37
Appendix B: Demographics Questionnaire:

Please answer the following questions to provide us with useful information about
yourself. Remember, your participation will remain completely anonymous, as we are not
asking for your name or any other personal identifying information on any part of this
questionnaire.

Age:______

Highest Level of education achieved:__________________
(i.e.. High School, College, Graduate School)

Academic Major:__________

Please list your top two hobbies/interest areas:_______________, ________________
(i.e.: Cars, Science)

Ethnicity: _______________________

Religious Affiliation:____________________

Please answer the following question circling the number that best describes your position:

1. How well has your education prepared you to think scientifically?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Very Moderately Very
Unprepared Prepared Prepared

2. To what extent are you a social person?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Very Moderately Very
Unsociable Sociable Sociable

3. How important is religious faith to you?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Very Moderately Very
Unimportant Important Important

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This research examines the psychological foundations of personal belief by measuring how different determinants of belief formulation contribute to certainty strength. Together, two studies collected data from over 400 undergraduate students regarding how physical, social and religious beliefs are formulated. Participants rated their strength of belief in these domains relative to the following determinants: the importance of substantiating evidence, the perceived logic inherent in a belief, the importance to self-identity, the influence of personal contacts, the social community and authority figures and the expected permanence, perceived relevance and personal likeability of the belief. The present research found that strength of certainty can be predicted by the quality of empirical evidence that people can offer to support the belief, by their estimates of their parent’s certainty in the belief and by the perceived importance of the belief to their sense of self-identity.

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The popularizing and politicizing of queer media images in Taiwan: 1997 to the present

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Creator Reser, Jared Edward (author)

Core Title Psychological correlates of certainty strength: measuring the relative influence of evidence, opinion of personal contacts & importance to self-identity

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Psychology

Publication Date 10/01/2009

Defense Date 08/06/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Belief,certainty,evidence,influence,logic,OAI-PMH Harvest,self-identity

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Walsh, David A. (committee chair), Farver, Jo Ann M. (committee member), Read, Stephen J. (committee member)

Creator Email jared@jaredreser.com,reser@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2627

Unique identifier UC1503435

Identifier etd-Reser-3248 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-251374 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2627 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Reser-3248.pdf

Dmrecord 251374

Document Type Thesis

Rights Reser, Jared Edward

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu