Why and When Beliefs Change

Why people do or do not change their beliefs has been a long-standing puzzle. Sometimes people hold onto false beliefs despite ample contradictory evidence; sometimes they change their beliefs without sufficient reason. Here, we propose that the utility of a belief is derived from the potential outcomes associated with holding it. Outcomes can be internal (e.g., positive/negative feelings) or external (e.g., material gain/loss), and only some are dependent on belief accuracy. Belief change can then be understood as an economic transaction in which the multidimensional utility of the old belief is compared against that of the new belief. Change will occur when potential outcomes alter across attributes, for example because of changing environments or when certain outcomes are made more or less salient

Instrumental and Expressive Elites in a Religious Organization. The United Synagogue in London / Elites expressives et instrumentales dans une organisation religieuse : la Synagogue Unie à Londres

Sharot Stephen. Instrumental and Expressive Elites in a Religious Organization. The United Synagogue in London / Elites expressives et instrumentales dans une organisation religieuse : la Synagogue Unie à Londres. In: Archives de sciences sociales des religions, n°43/1, 1977. pp. 141-155

Transnational cinema and cultural adaptation in early 1930s Europe: the four language versions of ‘The Private Secretary’

A comparison of the German film Die Privatsekretärin/The Private Secretary (Wilhelm Thiele, 1931) and its three other-language versions (French, Italian, British) provides a case study for a topic that has been little examined: the relationship between transnational cultural adaptation and the purported national identity and ‘nationalizing’ of films in the early sound period. The level and scope of these adaptations varied from retaining and modifying the original to remaking the film entirely. In some cases the adaptations were undertaken prior to export by the company that produced the original, in others by companies in the country that had imported the film. A brief discussion of the changing relationship between these factors..