Wanting to fit in is adaptive and drives most belief change.

Evidence

The fear of criminal prosecution prompted her to do more in-depth research, including coming across a book by critical complementary medicine professor Edzard Ernst, and eventually distancing herself from alternative medicine in direct exchanges with Ernst and other skeptical authors that lasted several months. As an important step she mentions the spatial separation from her previous environment, which had consisted almost exclusively of believers. … So conversations with skeptics were very important to her transformation process, which she estimates to have taken about 9 months in total – but she didn’t seek out these conversations until she was already well into her turnaround. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 201 (#complicates, via linked claim)

So what can we learn from the biographies presented? The good news is certainly, first of all, that a change of mind is possible. It is rare, but it does happen again and again that people turn away from prejudices and turn to scientific facts, even if they have already made important decisions based on their belief and this belief is part of their self-image or even the source of their livelihood. It is striking, however, that all of the individuals considered here were still relatively young at the time of their transformation, in any case still in the first half of an average life span. The transformation processes were often painful, full of doubts and inner, sometimes also outer conflicts, and they sometimes dragged on for years. In most cases, for very different reasons, a crack appeared in the system of faith, and it was in coming to terms with this initial doubt that the actual transformation took place. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 214 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Desire to fit in is a normal adaptive behavior; Genuine belief change is possible and rare, centered on an initial crack of doubt — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 214; A belief’s psychological basis determines how changeable it is (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Belief change begins inside the believer before outside conversations matter #complicates (0.76) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 201
• Genuine belief change is possible and rare, centered on an initial crack of doubt #complicates (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 214