Q. Approaches to belief change exist?

Numerous approaches to belief change exist.

1. Change currently held beliefs. It is in general very difficult to attempt to change beliefs that people hold particularly those that are strongly held even if they are inaccurate. For instance the petroleum industry advertised for a long time that its profits were lower than were commonly believed as well as provided extensive factual evidence in its advertising to support this reality. Consumers were suspicious as well as rejected this information however.

2. Change the importance of beliefs. Even though the sugar manufacturers would undoubtedly like to reduce the importance of healthy teeth it is usually not feasible to make beliefs less important--consumers are probable to reason why then would you bother bringing them up in the first place? Nevertheless it may be possible to strengthen beliefs that favour us-- example a vitamin supplement manufacturer may advertise that it is very important for women to replace iron lost through menstruation. Most consumers previously agree with this but the belief can be made stronger.

3. Add beliefs. Consumers are less probable to resist the addition of beliefs so long as they do not conflict with existing beliefs. Therefore the beef industry has added beliefs that beef (1) is convenient and (2) can be utilized to make a number of creative dishes. Vitamin manufacturer's effort to add the belief that stress causes vitamin depletion which sounds quite plausible to most people.

4. Change ideal. It habitually difficult and very risky to attempt to change ideals as well as only few firms succeeds. For instance Hard Candy may have attempted to change the ideal away from traditional beauty toward more unique self expression.