Interruption of a Feedback Route Without Belief Revision: How a Conflict Can Stop With No One Having Been Persuaded
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This conceptual paper introduces Interruption of a Feedback Route Without Belief Revision, a mechanism in which changes to contact or procedure close a sustaining interaction path while participants retain the beliefs at issue. Ending an exchange and changing the positions that drove it are distinct outcomes. The paper evaluates cessation, belief revision, reconciliation, and repair separately. Evidence that an exchange stopped is limited to the channels and period examined; retained or revised beliefs require additional evidence. Interruption can be valuable without agreement, and other routes may continue to sustain the conflict. The discussion connects the mechanism to Galtung’s distinction between negative and positive peace and examines Abigail Adams’s 1804 correspondence with Thomas Jefferson. Adams closed the correspondence while the final letters still expressed opposing positions on federal authority over the press. Her withdrawal of a separate suspicion of personal resentment is treated as a distinct change. Part of the Interpretation and Feedback series within On Human Modeling, the paper asks who can close an interaction route and what outcomes follow from that intervention. Its framework can inform human–AI research on distinguishing session closure or channel restrictions from evidence that a user agrees, has revised a belief, or considers a problem repaired.
Author: Cary, Alexandra
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225728347
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