Attributions of Responsibility for Obesity: Narrative Communication Reduces Reactive Counterarguing Among Liberals

Informed by theory and research on attributions and narrative persuasion, we compared the effectiveness of narrative and nonnarrative messages in changing attributions of responsibility for causes and solutions related to obesity in the United States. We randomly assigned 500 adults to view one of three messages (narrative, evidence, and a hybrid of the two) emphasizing environmental causes of obesity, or a no‐exposure control condition. The narrative condition increased the belief that societal actors (government, employers) are responsible for addressing obesity, but only among liberals. This pattern of results was partially explained by the success of the narrative condition in reducing reactive counterarguing, relative to the evidence condition, among liberals. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.     

Hegel,modal logic,and the social nature of mind

ABSTRACT

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit provides a fascinating picture of individual minds caught up in “recognitive” relations so as to constitute a realm—“spirit”—which, while necessarily embedded in nature, is not reducible to it. In this essay I suggest a contemporary path for developing Hegel's suggestive ideas in a way that broadly conforms to the demands of his own system, such that one moves from logic to a philosophy of mind. Hence I draw on Hegel's “subjective logic”, understood in the light of modern modal logic, in an attempt to model the way minds might be thought as connected by way of shared intentional contents. Here, we should not be surprised at some of the parallels that emerge between the approaches of Hegel and the modal logician Arthur Prior, as Prior had testified to the influence of his teacher, John N. Findlay, who himself had strong Hegelian leanings. In the final section, Robert Stalnaker's version of possible-world semantics is suggested as a framework within which Hegel's recognitive account of the mind might be understood.     

Therapeutic Contract Program: preliminary report on a behavioral alternative to the token economy

The token economy has been the primary model for the behavioral management of inpatient populations. However, this basically operant approach seldom emphasizes the development of cognitive-coping skills to help patients more effectively manage stressors that result in hospitalization. The Therapeutic Contract Program (TCP) is described as an inpatient-treatment strategy that is designed to help foster such cognitive-coping and self-control skills. While external structure is provided by components of this program, subprograms of the TCP have as their goal the development of internally-attributed coping skills and self-perceptions of competence. This preliminary report describes the structure of the TCP, as well as planned and in-progress measures of program participation and treatment outcome.