behaviour difference between list() function and [] in a conditional, the former behaves like string

Why does list(str) behaves as string here when [str] doesn’t?

Is there a difference between these methods

Before someone marks this as a duplicate do link the answer because I’ve spent a fair bit of time scrawling through stackoverflow!

code

x = 'ar'
'a' in list(x)
#True
'a' in [x]
#False
l = list(x)
'a' in l
#True
type(list(x))
#list
type([x])
#list

>Solution :

This is because list() converts the string to a list where each letter is one element. But [] creates a list where the things inside are the elements. List() is converting the string to a list whereas [] is just putting the string in a list.