Mohammad is the prophet of God.” Nonreligious examples include “I believe that everybody has human dignity,” or “I believe that I am destined to become a lawyer.” Although such beliefs cannot be verified in the external world, it is possible that they are held by several people. Therefore, they may be intersubjective.
The fourth type addresses something that has not been observed but that may be observable in the future. An example is “I believe that aliens exist.” Although these beliefs do not contradict anything that has been observed, they cannot be verified (yet) by observation. They can consequently not be called true beliefs or false beliefs. Nevertheless, they may be intersubjective.
The fifth type addresses emotions. Examples of such beliefs are “I believe he is very angry,” or “I believe that I cannot bear this any longer.” Since they address something that is felt by human beings, these beliefs have a strong subjective dimension. However, like beliefs themselves, feelings may be shared, and different individuals may hold the same feelings about the same things. For example, a lot of people felt fear after 9/11. Beliefs about feelings may therefore be intersubjective. Moreover, they may be verifiable in the external world: “I believe that he is very angry,” for instance, may be verifiable by an observation in which the person addressed by “he” actually shouts out “I am so angry.”7
Table 5: Typology of Beliefs
The sixth type addresses moral norms. Examples of such beliefs are “I believe that it is wrong to kill somebody,” or “I believe that nobody should lie.” Moral norms cannot be perceived with one’s senses, but like feelings they may manifest themselves in observable behavior, for example in telling the truth.8 Because of this, they may be true beliefs. Moreover, they can be intersubjective. Referring to the example above, it is possible that more than one person believes that “it is wrong to kill somebody.”
Table 5 provides an overview. Recall that the main purpose of this typology is not to be exhaustive but to show that beliefs can be used to study different types of factors, and that the most important distinction indicated by this typology is that between true beliefs and all other beliefs. The findings of the following analysis show that the most significant beliefs underlying political violence are true beliefs, rather than intersubjective or purely subjective beliefs. This shows that political violence is a response to things that exist in the world, rather than to religious beliefs, or even false beliefs. It shows that political violence is not cultural or a form of mental illness, and that the reasoning processes connected to it are surprisingly similar to those underlying mainstream political behavior.
Belief Connections
Another major component of cognitive maps are the connections between beliefs, also called inferences. These connections reveal the complex mechanisms by which certain factors, represented as beliefs, motivate humans to engage in certain behavior. In this study, belief connections identify the microlevel mechanisms motivating individuals to take up arms, or to refrain from doing so (see Chapters 4–6).
Belief connections indicate people’s subjective probability that an object has a particular characteristic in relation to the particular characteristic of another object, or in relation to another characteristic of the same object. Belief connections further indicate the logical order of this relation. In the words of Stenning and van Lambalgen: “the psychology of reasoning and logic are in a sense about the same subject” (2008: 3). More specifically, belief connections consist of beliefs that are coherent or directed within certain belief contexts.9
Coherence
Coherent connections address objects whose characteristics are logically consistent. Take the example of B1 “I believe that dogs have wings” and B2 “I believe that dogs can fly.” Both beliefs describe the same object (dogs). Moreover, B1 offers information about what dogs can do with wings (fly), and B2 about how dogs can fly (by using their wings). B1 and B2 can therefore be considered coherent (see Figure 3).
As a contrast, consider the example of B2 “I believe that dogs can fly” and B3 “I believe that dogs cannot fly.” The propositional contents of these beliefs also address the same object (dogs) and may therefore appear to be connected in a similar way. However, B2 and B3 also address particular characteristics of dogs that are contradictory: “can fly” versus “cannot fly.” This contradiction indicates that B2 and B3 cannot be considered coherent (see Figure 3).10 Rather, they are incoherent.
These examples suggest that coherence is the same as logical consistency. However, it is helpful to add that some researchers have put forward the stronger notion of “continuity of senses” to define coherence (De Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, chap. 5). Continuity of senses means that two beliefs cannot only be considered connected but also to complement each other. In the example above, one could say that B1 complements B2 (by offering information about what dogs can do with wings).
Figure 3. Example of a coherent and incoherent belief connection.
Based on these observations, coherence can indicate whether it is possible for a person who holds a particular belief to also hold a particular other belief in a certain belief context.11 This can be evaluated from a perspective that is external to the subject who believes certain things to be connected (or even by the subject himself, as he considers the beliefs he holds). The examples above suggest that, while belief connections in certain belief contexts are not limited to true beliefs, they cannot contain opposite types of beliefs whose propositional contents address the same thing: a person can believe that dogs can fly and that dogs have wings (example 1), but it is not possible for a person to believe that dogs can fly and that they do not fly (example 2). The first example is a coherent connection between two false beliefs about the same thing,12 and the second is an incoherent connection between a false and a true belief about the same thing.
Absence of Connection
Apart from being connected coherently or incoherently, particular beliefs can also be considered unconnected. This emphasizes that beliefs are context dependent, even though all beliefs are embedded in mental processes and may therefore be considered connected on a more general basis. Take the example of B5 “I believe that Germany is in Europe” and B6 “I believe that fish live in water.” By themselves, B5 and B6 do not address anything by which they could be considered connected. Another example are the beliefs B3 “I believe that dogs cannot fly” and B7 “I believe that John is the son of Jack and Pamela,” which by themselves do not address anything that allows us to consider these beliefs connected, either.
Whether particular beliefs are connected is subject to their belief context. It is possible, and indeed quite common, that all the beliefs somebody holds include beliefs that are contradictory. For example, I may hold the true belief that Alexander is wearing a green shirt in a belief context about my meeting with Alexander on Monday, and hold the true belief that Alexander is wearing a yellow shirt in a belief context about my meeting with Alexander on Tuesday. Considered in the same belief context, or by themselves, the beliefs that Alexander is wearing a green shirt and that Alexander is wearing a yellow shirt are contradictory, or incoherent. However, since they are related to different belief contexts addressing different situations, they can be considered unconnected rather than incoherent.
Directedness
Directed belief connections address objects whose characteristics can be considered logically dependent on each other. Specifically, a characteristic of an object