An ideology is an army of convictions about how the world is and ought to be. A conviction is a strong belief. The strength of a belief refers to the certainty with which it is held. People are more or less certain how the world it and how it ought to be. Our level of certainty varies with topic, mood, and personal inclination.

An ideology is a coordinated set of convictions held together by a sense of threat.  Like good generals, ideologues are vigilant, on guard, just in case, because you never know. Even when things seem to be going your way, danger lurks.

The more certain we are, the less likely we will change our minds when presented with evidence contrary to our views. Brain imaging research sheds some light on how we mobilize our cognitive and emotional resources to repulse the invaders.

In one study, participants with deeply held political convictions were scanned as they encountered arguments against their beliefs.  Activated brain areas included the insula and amygdala, which are associated with subjective “gut feelings”, disgust, reaction to norm violations, threat detection, and evaluation of trustworthiness. Participants who actually changed their minds in response to the counterevidence showed less activation in these brain areas.

In another study, participants were presented with arguments against testable and non-testable propositions. Certainty of belief in the non-testable propositions* was associated with heightened activity in the insula, as well as another brain region linked to evaluation of other people’s goals and intentions.

My take: when our deeply held convictions are challenged, our knee-jerk reaction is to question the goals, intentions, and trustworthiness of the messenger. Rejecting the message is almost an afterthought. Peace in the realm, at least for the moment.

* e.g. “Giving love to others is the most important thing in my life.”

References:

Howlett, J. R. & Paulus, M. P. The neural basis of testable and non-testable beliefs. Plos One 10, e0124596, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124596 (2015).

Kaplan, J. T. et al. Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence. Sci. Rep. 6, 39589; doi: 10.1038/srep39589 (2016).]