The repetition of a statement or an event that supports a certain fact can result in forming a new belief. This only happens if the statements repeated or the events that happened didn’t contradict the existing beliefs.

Those articles explained the process of belief formation, but they didn’t address a critical issue, so were those beliefs formed?

Why can two people go through the same situations but build different beliefs?
Why do people from certain beliefs about the world while others don’t?

The answer to all of those questions lies in two words: Psychological stability.

Our beliefs make us mentally stable.

David always wanted to have more money, but for various reasons, he couldn’t. When he walks down the streets and sees younger men driving extravagant cars, he feels totally worthless. For some time, he struggled to become rich, but after some time, he gave up.

On the unconscious level, David was feeling worthless because he believed that money makes people more worthy. One day he saw a movie about a very corrupted rich man who bribed the cops to do dirty work for him. David never understood why he loved that movie so much. He watched it more than once, and each time he did, that new belief became very strong.

The belief states that Rich people are unethical and corrupt. Since that day, his mind started collecting more evidence to support that belief until it became a solid fact. David now believes that all rich people are thieves.

Do you know why that belief was formed?
To save David’s self-esteem.

The reason David formed that belief is that he was eagerly looking for a way to feel good about himself since he quit his pursuit for money. We sometimes form new beliefs to help ourselves become more psychologically stable, even if those beliefs were totally incorrect.

How do you see the world?

Are you sure you see the world correctly?
Are your beliefs real?
Are you sure the evidence you are collecting to support those beliefs isn’t biased?

Only a brave person can answer those questions correctly. There are no limits to what a human mind can achieve once a person believes that everything is possible. But as soon as a limiting belief is formed, all of your powers will become useless.

David was smart, hardworking, and ambitious, but all of those good traits turned into nothing when he decided to create a false belief about rich people.

Had David been a brave man, he would have sought other methods of attaining psychological stability other than self-deception.