Impact of Behavioral Intention on Effectiveness of Message Features Evidence From the Family Sun Safety Project

The effectiveness of messages with different logical styles might change, regardless of factual content, depending on receiver intent to practice prevention. Predictions based on reactance theory, postdecisional regret, and language expectancy theory were tested in a study altering logical style (inductive versus deductive) and language intensity in messages to parents advocating family sun safety. A prediction that deductively formatted messages would be inferior for parents not intending to act was confirmed in analyses of their reported sun protection, supporting a reactance theory explanation. For parents with mixed intentions to increase protection for themselves or their children, deductive messages were most effective, consistent with postdecisional regret processes. High language intensity enhanced both effects. Reactance effects among nonintenders completely disappeared in a follow-up survey, but language intensity effects remained. The influence of message features varies by stage of progression to action, which has practical implications for tailoring health communication to individual needs.     

Counseling Services of Southern Baptist Colleges and Universities: A Descriptive Survey

This study surveyed the counseling services offered by Southern Baptist colleges and universities. Information was gathered about the types of services offered, the credentials of the staff offering services, perceived administrative attitudes toward counseling services, specific types of problems presented by students to counselors, and the relative frequency with which those problems were presented. Reported results were discussed in light of the implied mission of the Christian college to develop the whole student.     

Spousal Perceptions of Midlife Career Change

The impact of midlife career change on the changer's family is the focus of the study. It identifies several family adaptations characterizing the career change process.     

Against Arguments from Reference*

It is common in various quarters of philosophy to derive philosophically significant conclusions from theories of reference. In this paper, we argue that philosophers should give up on such ‘arguments from reference.’ Intuitions play a central role in establishing theories of reference, and recent cross‐cultural work suggests that intuitions about reference vary across cultures and between individuals within a culture ( Machery et al. 2004 ). We argue that accommodating this variation within a theory of reference undermines arguments from reference.