In recent years, important political and societal topics, ranging from climate change to conspiracy theories, dominated our daily news. These dominating topics have in common that they rely from our beliefs: We believe the veracity of climate change or its absence, a theory or political idea and whether vaccines help or hurt. What astounds us is the persistence of these beliefs. Once installed, it seems difficult for people to update their beliefs in accordance with information provided by science or mainstream media. The aim of this research project is to study the mechanisms underlying belief updating with a cognitive neuroscience approach which should be seen as complementary to the ideas developed in social psychology. Two ideas are central to the project. A first idea is that our belief system and the way our beliefs are changed or updated, is evolutionarily shaped following the same rules used for cognitive control. Second, recent work indicated that subjective experiences play a pivotal role in activating cognitive control mechanisms. To complete the theoretical parallel drawn between cognitive control and belief updating we investigate the functional role of experiencing belief updating as aversive and relate it directly to the aversive experience of cognitive control. The current research proposal lays the groundwork for future collaborations between a cognitive neuroscience and a social psychological research approach to belief updating.