Without ever pointing it out, my wife will have caused me to notice uncomfortable inconsistencies in my belief system. I will likely decide to do just that the next time I see her putting on her running shoes. At the next social gathering we attend, she may capitalize on the situation and mention that the two of us are now exercising together. As such, it will become part of my self concept and will become a long-term behavior pattern. So just because someone has a positive attitude does not mean they will invariably behave in a consistent manner.
Education is the propagation of a set of beliefs, or Propaganda .
Beliefs are things known or believed to be true, as opposed to attitudes, which are evaluations of objects that we think about. Beliefs are important precursors to both attitudes and behavior, but are often used or created after the fact to defend attitudes and behaviors we already own. The term now connotes mass persuasion attempts manufactured by political entities, which manipulate far more than mere belief. Nonetheless, central to both education and propaganda is the role of the fact, the statistic, the element of knowledge that the target believes to be true. Thought control truly represents the dark side of social influence, as it combines compliance, persuasion, and propaganda tactics into a powerfully insidious form of coercive manipulation that robs an individual of his original identity and replaces it with another that the individual would not have freely chosen of his own accord.