Final answer:
Belief systems or worldviews refer to psychological barriers comprised of societal beliefs and values that influence how individuals interpret and process information. These systems shape our attitudes and behaviors, impacting actions like conformity, prejudice, and discrimination, and are also shaped by cognitive biases like confirmation bias.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term you are looking for refers to belief systems or worldviews. These are psychological barriers that consist of societal beliefs and values through which individuals process information to determine its significance. Understanding these belief systems helps to explain why people act in particular ways within their environments. These systems shape how we perceive reality and can be influenced by gender, age, occupation, or education level.
Our attitudes, an important part of our belief systems, encompass our evaluations or feelings towards various aspects of our environment and are influenced both by external and internal factors. These can manifest in various social phenomena such as conformity, compliance, obedience, prejudice, and discrimination. For instance, conformity to group norms is driven by a desire to fit in or be liked, as well as a desire to be accurate and gain information from the group.
As a person grows, they acquire beliefs through stories and language use within their culture, creating a framework for their thinking processes. Awareness of one's cognitive biases, like confirmation bias, is also crucial since it affects how we process new information, often favoring information that supports our existing beliefs.