How are convictions formed? (not criminal ones)?

Question

For example, a n**i officer believes that Aryans are the superior race, and that the persecution of Jews is justified. However, it is now a justified true belief that all races to be equal, hence his belief is false. Despite this, the n**i officer continues to stick to what he views as the truth and kills more Jews.

is this example valid?

Answer 1

Convictions (as you describe them) are created and reinforced through agents of socialization.  We are, of course, not built with preconceived notions.  We have to be taught all that we know.  This is done by agents of socialization.  Each society has different agents and different levels of their effects.  In n**i Germany one of the giant agents of socialization was the central government and its propaganda.  Through programs of education n**i party membes learned what they were taught by the powers that were (the elite rulers of the party itself).  Through these "educational" programs your hypothetical n**i officer would have learned of the inferiority of others while exhalting the superiority of the master race.  This was repeated over and over and over and examples may have been given that reinforced this belief set.  

Yours is an excellent example!  Agents of socialization in america include schools, families, peer groups, the government (through its influence on other realms as well as directly on certain individuals), employment, and many others.  

Just remember that we are not born with ideas, we have to learn them from somewhere.  This is a key paradigm to sociological inquiry.  The where, how, and why are critical to our understanding of sociology.