It is a commonly held notion that faulty beliefs can be altered by direct experience that violates the belief in question. But it is also readily observed that many humans find having their beliefs challenged to be extraordinarily stressful and distasteful, and even rage-provoking in some instances. Why is the mind so seemingly protective of challenges to beliefs regardless of their objective or demonstrable rightness or wrongness?

In a sense, beliefs are like computer programming—the detailed and specific instructions that define what an individual can believe or not about a given subject. As a consequence, beliefs are deeply important determining factors in what people will think, feel, and act upon. It is extremely difficult to do anything in opposition to the inner fundamental beliefs a person holds. People can do so for a variety of reasons, perhaps to ingratiate themselves with someone, in following along with something they know is wrong, but that does not mean it will go on forever. Eventually, people will usually right the ship, so to speak, and stop such compromises knowing it will not serve them in the end to violate their own standards. This is why beliefs have such great importance, because they are determining factors in everything that happens and they are resistant to change. This is often where the rubber meets the road in a relationship, for example, where people, after a whirlwind romance, might marry, and then find out there are fundamental disagreements on their basic beliefs about any number of things. Their inability to change what their beliefs dictate will make them uncooperative with a partner who differs fundamentally in their composite of beliefs, and they will clash and may well end up divorced because of the inflexibility inherent in belief-based differences of a fundamental nature. The ability to compromise is based on tolerance for the beliefs of others, and that can be an admirable trait and even essential for happy coexistence, as no two people are identical so there will always be differences that emerge in beliefs held by any two individuals. So the extent to which this becomes an important issue, that might precipitate a crisis, will be a function of the nature of the belief and to what extent people hold strong views about fairness, morality, their own importance versus the sovereignty of others, and many other attributes that need to be sorted out when there are clashing beliefs in play. The fundamental overriding importance of beliefs in many circumstances is well‑illustrated by the aberration of the psychopath who can be heartless and cruel, even in the most extreme ways, as in treating people as objects and carrying out ruthless and brutal treatment of another human being simply to get something for the self without the least concern about the harm caused and the pain suffered by their victim. Such perspectives are the consequence of being disconnected from the conscience, but the way in which this becomes important, and a critical factor in explaining aberrant behavior, is that morality is anchored in as a series of beliefs supplied by the conscience as children mature and learn through life experience what is safe to do or not, what is nice and acceptable treatment of others or not, and through what happens will learn, in most cases, painful lessons about the importance of having a balanced sharing in their interpersonal relationships through respect for the sovereignty of others, knowing there will be consequences for selfishness. The psychopath cannot learn such lessons because they lack the feelings that come from believing in moral principles. In a normal person, a breach of conduct leading to them being caught stealing something from another, or doing something behind their back and then being found out, would lead to feelings of shame, humiliation, and regret. This will not be so for the psychopath. They are clever enough to learn to avoid being found out when they exploit others, but will not feel shame or guilt in doing so because they lack the inner beliefs to guide proper conduct and have the proper emotional response normally linked to those beliefs and their corollary when something goes wrong and they act inappropriately. The lack of a belief means that not only is it absent, it cannot be strengthened to grow in value or influence. So missing beliefs about important matters will be a distinct liability. Those individuals exhibiting weakness of character will have shakier beliefs and moral precepts and will be more willing and able to take shortcuts in life that may hurt others.