Joseph Bendana

Most psychologists and philosophers maintain that implicit attitudes are not beliefs. This chapter argues that they are by presenting a dilemma for criteria of belief that are supposed to distinguish implicit attitudes from beliefs. It then argues that if we adopt an independently motivated, fragmented model of the human mind, we can explain frequently cited and prima facie puzzling empirical data that can appear to distinguish implicit attitudes from beliefs. Finally, the chapter sketches some simple predictions that fall out of the combination of a fragmented model of the mind and the view that implicit attitudes are beliefs, hopefully opening the door for empirical investigations into novel strategies for altering implicit attitudes.

Belief storage is often modeled as having the structure of a single, unified web. This model of belief storage is attractive and widely assumed because it appears to provide an explanation of the flexibility of cognition and the complicated dynamics of belief revision. However, when one scrutinizes human cognition, one finds strong evidence against a unified web of belief and for a fragmented model of belief storage. Using the best available evidence from cognitive science, we develop this fragmented model into a nascent theory of the cognitive architecture of belief storage.