ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses several questions. How do the prior beliefs of students influence the way in which they process this information? Will students comprehend information with more or less success if it matches or does not match their prior beliefs? Under what circumstances might students change their beliefs? The chapter argues that the traditional methods and theories from text comprehension are well suited to examine the influences of beliefs on the processing students do and the mental representations they form when reading belief-related texts. The chapter suggests that interdisciplinary collaboration between discourse researchers and social psychologists may be fruitful in addressing worldview influences. A factor that serves as a mediator in belief change is one in which readers encountering belief-consistent or inconsistent information may have some sort of psychological reaction to the information, and that reaction, in turn, would influence potential changes in beliefs.
