seeker wrote:Here I´ve found an interesting article about this topic:
Guerin. (1994). Attitudes and Beliefs As Verbal Behavior.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 3-0157.pdf
Here´s a general proposal of a functional analysis of psychological terms:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 2-0104.pdf

Does it have to be that complicated ? Make someone participate in a TV Quiz show for big stakes (say $10000). For a much smaller sum (say $100) she can consult various aids (ask a friend, the public, etc.). If she answers that Istanbul is the capital of Turkey without any aid, I'd say that by any standard she believes that Istanbul is the capital of Turkey. Or am I missing something ?

palindnilap wrote:I cannot imagine a definition of faith that is not a subset of belief. Faith sounds a bit like a belief wrapped into other beliefs and/or values for self-protection (do you accept moral values as valid constructs?). Like in "not only is A true, but it would be morally bad to test for A, or to merely contemplate what would happen if A were false". It seems arguable that once the belief is sufficiently thus wrapped, it doesn't matter much any more that there is a belief in the box or not. I would still count it as a belief since the behavior is sure to be in line with the belief.

Possibly "faith" has several usages. I´ve seen some people argue that "faith" is used as "confidence" or "reliance" or "trust" on something or someone, that could occur in the absence of verbal behavior or belief.

I would guess that you are especially interested in supernatural / theistic belief. I will propose that setting supernatural beliefs apart from more mundane beliefs creates more problems than it solves. In the quiz show example above, the striking difference between the belief that Istanbul is the capital of Turkey and the belief that God exists is that the former is falsifiable, so that it can be operationalized much more easily. But as the discussion about falsifiability shows, though incredibly useful a concept it is, it is not such a natural one that we would posit an "innate falsifiability module". So why do we need to draw a line between falsifiable and unfalsifiable beliefs in psychology ? I'd conjecture that the latter work just like the former, easily testable ones.