ABSTRACT
Beliefs involve strong ideas, assumptions, and thoughts that range from being quite vivid to residing below conscious awareness. The belief was specific to context–beliefs about the students in his science class about their science competence. The degree to which beliefs are considered changeable is a function of the specificity with which beliefs are described, the beliefs that are activated by the context, and how those beliefs are identified and assessed. The quasi-logical way in which beliefs are held is grounded in the idea that beliefs do exist in total isolation or independent of beliefs. The psychological centrality of a belief determines the ease with which a belief can be modified or changed – it essentially describes how strongly the individual holds the belief. Knowledge development within the social groups is referred to as enculturation through which people tacitly and explicitly take on behavior, beliefs, values, and norms of social groups.
