Can Your Beliefs Impact Your Health and Well-Being?

This Element is an excerpt from Invisible Forces and Powerful Beliefs: Gravity, Gods, and Minds (9780137075454) by the Chicago Social Brain Network. Available in print and digital formats.

The new science of belief: what science is learning about the close interrelationships between belief, behavior, and human health.

People have many sources of information, knowledge, and understanding. We consider the most common to be empirically acquired--learned facts, relations, associations, and perceptual and motor skills. These are powerful determinants of thought and behavior. But other sources of information and knowledge also affect our interaction with the environment, including reflex-like circuits that are independent of explicit learning.