Page - 104 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

104 | www.limina-graz.eu Sara Lumbreras and Lluis Oviedo | Belief networks as complex systems are open to interaction with the environment and with others, so that beliefs are adapted in the light of new evidence or through in- teraction with others (Crocker/Fiske/Taylor 1984; Rodriguez/Bol- len/Ahn 2016; Sodian/Zaitchik/Carey 1991). ̟ Belief systems are complex. They can be generated from a relatively simple starting set of ideas, but they are not easy to understand or predict. There is a breadth of literature that deals with how to predict belief formation and evolution depending on personal characteristics. Personal features such as analytic cognitive style (Pennycook et al. 2012), feelings of superiority (Toner et al. 2013), or even parenting styles (Ruffman/ Perner/Parkin 1999) have been shown to influence belief formation and change. ̟ Belief networks, as complex systems, are subject to nonlinear phenom- ena. Nonlinearity means that the same stimuli do not lead always to the same response. For instance, it takes more information to change beliefs than to confirm them. This bias appears also in many sys- tems under the general name of hysteresis. Hysteresis occurs when the response depends on the history of the system. For example, a magnet may have more than one possible magnetic moment in a given magnetic field, depending on how the field changed in the past. Hysteresis has been studied in physics, chemistry, engineer- ing, biology, and economics, and probably also appears in belief change. In addition, some complex systems can experience very different states with respect to change: a relatively stable state when changes are slow and a “crisis” state when changes can hap- pen rapidly and spread widely. This has been thoroughly studied, again, in magnetism, and has been observed in what is known as the Ising model (Kaneyoshi/Jaščur/Fittipaldi 1993), which de- scribes a magnetic material in terms of its microscopic domains. In belief networks, change is generally difficult but, in times of crisis, the change in one belief can spread to a large number of them. This is true for personal and for social beliefs, where the crisis dynamic could be explained as a paradigm shift (Jones 1977).