section_path: Psychology
section_name: Psychology
paragraph_text: Psychology
  
  Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation and therefore one of the building blocks of conscious thought. Philosophers have tended to be more abstract in their analysis, and much of the work examining the viability of the belief concept stems from philosophical analysis.
  
  The concept of belief presumes a subject (the believer) and an object of belief (the proposition). Like other propositional attitudes, belief implies the existence of mental states and intentionality, both of which are hotly debated topics in the philosophy of mind, whose foundations and relation to brain states are still controversial.
  
  Beliefs are sometimes divided into core beliefs (that are actively thought about) and dispositional beliefs (that may be ascribed to someone who has not thought about the issue). For example, if asked "do you believe tigers wear pink pajamas?" a person might answer that they do not, despite the fact they may never have thought about this situation before.
  
  Philosopher Lynne Rudder Baker has outlined four main contemporary approaches to belief in her book Saving Belief:
  
  Strategic approaches make a distinction between rules, norms and beliefs as follows: