delusion (noun) - a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact
Not just "belief perseverance," delusion.
I don't think I ever actually had this; I "believed" growing up in the church because I just went along with what I was told. I started to question about the same time I started to think for myself. I gave up "belief" when I decided to compare claims to evidence. I got lucky, it very easily could have gone the other way.
Like your post icanseethelight and I agree that most church members will continue to believe regardless of what LDS, inc. admits to.
I think some of their motivations might be: fear of the unknown, a need to belong, power, tradition (might be connected with a need to belong), and non-critical thinking.
I'm sure there are others on the board that can more succinctly describe why people continue with their belief in spite of significant evidence to the contrary.
I remember when the Mark Hoffman thing was happening and a male friend of mine made the following statement, "I don't care what those documents say, Joseph Smith is still a prophet of God." This man was educated and successful in his profession.
At the time that he said it, Hoffman's forgeries had not been exposed. It appeared to me that he was saying, "right or wrong, I'm sticking with the church."
On some level, people are creatures of habit. Leaving the church is more than exiting a gym membership. A person's identity is at stake as well as the issue of their eternal life for violating their baptismal covenants. It is pretty scary. Status quo works for a lot of people.