Relevant Beliefs Research Articles

The Relation Between Perceived Risk and Preventive Action: A Within‐Subject Analysis of Perceived Driving Risk and Intentions to Wear Seatbelts

Intentions to wear seatbelts in 12 different driving situations were predicted from attitudes toward wearing seatbelts, subjective norms concerning seatbelt uses, and perceived driving risk. In a given driving situation, appropriate measures of attitudes and subjective norms both had significant effects on intentions to wear a seatbelt, whereas there was little relation between risk and intentions. Intentions across the 12 driving situations were significantly related to perceived driving risk, both for aggregate data and for a substantial portion of individual subjects. However, further analyses indicated that risk seemed to affect intentions indirectly through subjective norms and attitudes associated with seat‐belt use. The results suggest that attempts to increase seatbelt use should target all relevant beliefs important in determining people's attitudes toward and subjective norms concerning seatbelt use, rather than just focusing upon making people aware of the risks associated with driving.

Dretske's Desires

Reasons explanations of action in terms of the agent's desires and beliefs typically perform two major jobs. First, they display one way in which the action was appropriate or made sense. Second, they provide an explanation of why the action occured. The content of the cited beliefs and desires what is believed and desired clearly is crucial to the first job. It is because I want to drink water and believe there is water in the cup that my picking up the cup makes sense. If my relevant desires and beliefs had different contents if, for example, I believed instead that the cup was empty my picking up the cup might make no sense at all. But it is one thing for my action to be appropriate, given what I believe and desire; another for these beliefs and desires to explain why I so act. To be part of this explanation it seems that my desire and belief must at least be causes of my action. But this is not enough; for my desire and belief might cause my picking up the cup in a way that does not depend on their content. It might be that these states would have caused the same behavior even if they had had radically different contents, just as (in Dretske's example) the soprano's acoustic output would have caused the glass to break even if its conventional meaning had been radically different. The fact that my desires and beliefs have the content that they do the content that is critical to the first job of reasons explanations should itself contribute to a causal explanation of the action. Or so, at least, Fred Dretske supposes in his fascinating and important book, Explaining Behavior. How could the content of a mental state be part of a causal explanation of what the agent does? Well, it might work this way. What I believe and desire is fully determined by properties that are intrinsic to me, properties that do not depend on my relations to things outside of me. And my having these properties might be related in lawlike ways to what I do. This assumes that the content of my beliefs and desires is determined by my intrinsic properties. But this seems to many including Dretske to be false. On Dretske's view what I believe and desire is an extrinsic prop-

Maximization, Stability of Decision, and Actions in Accordance with Reason

Rational actions reflect beliefs and preferences in certain orderly ways. The problem of theory is to explain which beliefs and preferences are relevant to the rationality of particular actions, and exactly how they are relevant. One distinction of interest here is between an agent's beliefs and preferences just before an action's time, and his beliefs and preferences at its time. Theorists do not agree about the times of beliefs and desires that are relevant to the rationality of action. Another distinction is between actions that would, in one sense or another, maximize expected utilities given relevant beliefs and desires, and actions, decisions for which would, in one sense or another, be stable. There is disagreement about the relevance of these things to the rationality of actions. Here, in the first part below, several possible positions on these issues are explained and compared. In the second part, I contrast perspectives on these issues, and comment on arguments that might be brought against the position I favor. In the third part, I restate and elaborate on this position.

Intention is choice with commitment

This paper explores principles governing the rational balance among an agent's beliefs, goals, actions, and intentions. Such principles provide specifications for artificial agents, and approximate a theory of human action (as philosophers use the term). By making explicit the conditions under which an agent can drop his goals, i.e., by specifying how the agent is committed to his goals, the formalism captures a number of important properties of intention. Specifically, the formalism provides analyses for Bratman's three characteristic functional roles played by intentions [7, 9], and shows how agents can avoid intending all the foreseen side-effects of what they actually intend. Finally, the analysis shows how intentions can be adopted relative to a background of relevant beliefs and other intentions or goals. By relativizing one agent's intentions in terms of beliefs about another agent's intentions (or beliefs), we derive a preliminary account of interpersonal commitments.

Functional Explanations and Reasons as Causes

If we assume that a conceptual connection does hold between reasons and action, the arguments for both theses are strikingly simple. In defense of the first thesis, all that need be added is Hume's Principle: between cause and effect only a (logically) contingent relation holds. For given Hume's Principle, and the conceptual connection (which after all is not a contingent one), it follows that no causal connection holds. In defense of the second thesis, all that need be added is one assumption and one observation. The assumption is that the covering-law model of explanation is adequate to the natural sciences; the observation is that if a conceptual connection does hold, then covering-laws are not required to explain a person's action given the presence of the relevant beliefs and desires (because the presence of the latter entail the performance of the former). Together the assumption and the observation undermine the view that one model of explanation will fit both natural science and human psychology.

Reliability, Reasons, and Belief Contexts

Here’s a problem that any reliability theory must face, whether it’s one that holds that beliefs are justified just when they’re products of belief-forming mechanisms with the potential of having good records of yielding true beliefs (as in Goldman 1979 and 1986), or one that holds that a belief meets the standards for knowledge if and only if its causal basis rules out any relevant chance of mistake (as in Dretske 1971 and 1981, and Nozick 1981). The problem is made evident when cast in probabilistic terms. Let r be S’s reason for tokening the true belief that p under conditions c. Then, according to reliabilism (and with a number of other things being equal), Sis justified in believing that p under c iff r makes it sufficiently probable that p, whileS knows that p iff the conditional probability that p on r and c is unity. But how do we specify the belief context c to be counted as epistemically relevant? As urged recently by John Pollock (1984), on the face of it there seems to be no principled reason for excluding mention of the truth value of the proposition believed. As he says, ‘The only obvious way to construct an objective non-epistemic kind of definite probability is to make it conditional on everything that is true [at the belief’s tokening]’ (Pollock 1984, 110); and, as he notes, ‘one feature of the present circumstances is a characterization of the belief as a belief in [p ], and another feature is the truth value of [p]’ (109). But if we allow both the belief token and its truth value membership in the relevant belief context, we then have the hopeless task of explaining how the probability of the token’s being true can be anything but one or zero, one if what is believed is true, and zero if it’s false. This in tum would commit reliabilism to the foolish doctrines that a belief’s truth is sufficient for knowledge, while no false belief is ever even justified. No wonder, then, that Pollock says ‘there is no way to construct an intelligible notion of reliability which does the job required by the reliabilist’ (105). And he is surely right in this: Neither knowledge nor justification can be explained as the chance of a belief’s being true if the relevant belief context is required to mention both the belief tokened and its truth value. We would be engaged in a comparably pointless task were we to try to explain the likelihood of a wager’s being a good bet on a horse race when we had to include among the givens both which horse was picked and its finish, or were we to try to make sense of the assertion that a theory’s predictions have a good chance of being true when both what the theory predicts and its outcome had to be included among the givens. (Quine makes a similar point when he says, ‘If there is no distinguishing between a thing’s disposition to act in a certain way in certain circumstances and the mere fact of its so acting in those circumstances, then whatever the thing may do can be laid to a disposition, by defining the circumstances narrowly enough’ [Quine 1973, 5]. See also Goldman 1979, 12; Goldman 1986, 49-51; and Feldman 1985 for related discussions.)

Correlates of the contraceptive behavior of adolescents/young adults

Pregnancy among adolescents/young adults continues at epidemic levels despite widespread concern regarding its social and psychological consequences. Cognitive psychologists point out that active decisions and behaviors such as those involved in effective contraception are facilitated or inhibited by any of a number of relevant attitudes and beliefs. The present investigation examined several such cognitive variables. Specifically, the following hypotheses were tested: Among adolescents/young adults, the use of effective contraception would be positively related to (a) the number of known cases of unwanted pregnancy of which subjects were directly aware, and (b) sexual guilt. A sample of 147 sexually active single college students aged 18–19 provided information relevant to these hypotheses. Analyses indicated that contraceptive behavior was unrelated to the number of unwanted pregnancies of which subjects were aware, but was substantially and significantly associated with sexual guilt, even when the poss...

Cognitive processes underlying context effects in attitude measurement.

We begin this article with the assumption that attitudes are best understood as structures in longterm memory, and we look at the implications of this view for the response process in attitude surveys. More specifically, we assert that an answer to an attitude question is the product of a fourstage process. Respondents first interpret the attitude question, determining what attitude the question is about. They then retrieve relevant beliefs and feelings. Next, they apply these beliefs and feelings in rendering the appropriate judgment. Finally, they use this judgment to select a response. All four of the component processes can be affected by prior items. The prior items can provide a framework for interpreting later questions and can also make some responses appear to be redundant with earlier answers. The prior items can prime some beliefs, making them more accessible to the retrieval process. The prior items can suggest a norm or standard of comparison for making the judgment. Finally, the prior items can create consistency pressures or pressures to appear moderate. Because of the multiple processes involved, context effects are difficult to predict and sometimes difficult to replicate. We attempt to sort out when context is likely to affect later responses and include a list of the variables that affect the size and direction of the effects of context.

The precaution adoption process.

This article presents a critique of current models of preventive behavior. It discusses a variety of factors that are usually overlooked-including the appearance of costs and benefits over time, the role of cues to action, the problem of competing life demands, and the ways that actual decision behavior differs from the rational ideal implicit in expectancy-value and utility theories. Such considerations suggest that the adoption of new precautions should be viewed as a dynamic process with many determinants. The framework of a model that is able to accommodate these additional factors is described. This alternative model portrays the precaution adoption process as an orderly sequence of qualitatively different cognitive stages. Data illustrating a few of the suggestions made in the article are presented, and implications for prevention programs are discussed.

Raking the Field of the Discourse of Racism

In order to disavow our social life of a set of social relations as destructive as racism, it is necessary to comprehend it in its full complexity. It is little wonder, then, that racism is yet so much a feature of contemporary social experience. The prevailing accounts of racism institutionalized by the mainstream academic perspectives have created an object corresponding only in part to the wide range of racism's manifestations in our daily experience. Racism has been defined widely as an irrational group prejudice asserting superiority or inferiority of members of races on unwarranted groups of physical or mythical properties, such as skin color, blood, and so forth. Consider, however, the following spreading examples: Charles, a white Englishman, votes to end West Indian immigration because he finds his neighborhood transforming culturally from one of privacy, chamber music and bacon 'n eggs to that of public steel drum music, Jamaican food and natty dreadlocks. Similarly, Friedrich, a white German, votes to end migrant labor because he watched his turf changing from one of Wagner and schnitzel to belly dancing, shish kebab and Turkish delight. Both are clearly racist in their relevant beliefs and acts here. But no prejudgment need be made by them about some a priori group

The cognitive orientation of expressive communicability in schizophrenics and normals

The study dealt with expressive communicability (EC), i.e., the amount, fluency, elaboration, clarity, and veracity of the voluntarily transmitted information about oneself. Low EC is considered as a schizophrenic symptom and as a cause of interpersonal difficulties in normals. For investigating the motivational antecedents of EC we applied the cognitive orientation (CO) theory that deals with explaining, predicting, and manipulating behaviors by means of cognitive contents and processes. The hypotheses were that schizophrenics would have fewer positive and more negative EC manifestations than normals, and that beliefs of four types would predict EC in both groups. Subjects were 30 hospitalized schizophrenics and 30 matched normals of both genders. They were administered individually the CO questionnaire and role-playing situations providing EC scores. Hospital personnel and close acquaintances answered a 13-item questionnaire about the subjects' EC. The findings confirmed the hypotheses: schizophrenics differed from normals on all EC measures, and the beliefs predicted 81%–100% EC measures in each group and the whole sample. The discussion focused on theoretical implications for cognitive motivation, the similarity of the motivational processes in schizophrenics and normals, and therapeutic implications for changing EC by changing the relevant beliefs.

Convariation Assessment by Consumers

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of prior beliefs and information format on consumers' assessment of the relationship between price and quality for four frequently purchased grocery products. In these studies, consumers were shown sets of data, each of which presented ranks of 10 brands of a product category on price and quality. Contrary to prior research on illusory correlation, consumers' estimates of covariation were relatively accurate and unaffected by the availability of relevant prior beliefs about the nature of the relationship between price and quality for grocery products in general or by format manipulations that varied the ease or difficulty of processing the data. These findings are discussed in terms of the effect of detailed instructions, the availability of simple heuristics for processing rank-ordered data, differences between social and consumer perceptions, and the stages of consumer information processing most likely to be affected by prior beliefs.

Understanding and enhancing patient compliance with diabetic regimens.

Behavioral research on patient compliance with regimens to manage diabetes has suffered from lack of conceptual rigor, although a handful of recent studies and reviews are more theoretically oriented. The present review proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework in the context of learning theory to explain patient compliance and to derive approaches for enhancing compliance. The conceptual framework is the health belief model (HBM) expanded to include the concept of perceived self-efficacy. This expanded model may both serve as an agenda for future research as well as a set of guidelines for the education of patients with diabetes. A variety of educational interventions is recommended for use in patient education provided they succeed in reinforcing relevant health beliefs, behavioral skills, and the sense of self-efficacy. The problem of long-term maintenance, of particular significance in chronic disease management, is addressed by the relapse prevention model derived from social learning theory and emphasizing self-efficacy and the learning of coping skills.

Water pollution control in democratic societies: a cross-national analysis of sources of public beliefs in Japan and in the United States.

Postindustrial society seems to bring with it an inevitable heightening of official and public concern with environmental pollution. In light of this fact it becomes important to understand the dynamics by which public opinion is formulated in this area of public policy. What factors are associated with citizens placing concern for environmental pollution above other public policy concerns? What individual characteristics are associ‐ ated with the development of the view that government ought to take direct action to prevent or deal with environmental pollution? Are such factors common to postindustrial democratic societies generally? The study reported here identifies the similarities and differences in the patterns and correlates of pollution relevant beliefs and behavior in Japan (in the cities of Llishima, Fuji and Numazu in Shizuoka Prefecture] and the United States (Spokane City and County, Washington State). A comparative study of pollution policy can be especially instructive inasmuch as unique cultural, economic, historical and social patterns may generate distinctive citizen conceptions of desired policy outcomes and means to achieve them.

Curanderos and Mental Health Professionals: A Comparative Study on. Perceptions of Psychopathology

Curanderos and mental health care professionals differ in the way they perceive psychopathology, as demonstrated in the way they responded to a set of hypothetical case histories. These vignettes depicted people suffering from a variety of psychiatric and folk-medical disorders. Compared with professionals, cur anderos were found to be reluctant to label the disorders as "mental illness." They also perceived the people portrayed in the vignettes as less seriously "ill" and less dangerous to them selves or to others. The curanderos were found to classify the disorders presented in a unique and culturally specific way. Their classification system was seen to be consistent with cul turally relevant ideas and beliefs about etiological processes. A variety of treatments based on those etiological processes were also recommended by the curanderos.

Effects of Choice, Responsibility, and Anonymity on Attitudes Following Attitude-Consistent Behavior

Summary Behaving consistently with one's existing attitudes has sometimes been found to produce self-perception effects (Ss later express greater involvement with relevant beliefs as behavioral freedom increases) and other times self-presentational, reactance effects (Ss later express greater involvement as behavioral freedom decreases). To test hypotheses about when these effects occur, 208 American male and female undergraduates committed themselves to argue for a consonant issue under conditions when they (a) had high or low choice prior to the behavior; (b) had high or low responsibility for a potential failure on the task; and (c) were highly, moderately, or not at all anonymous. Contrary to predictions, the manipulations did not affect two direct measures of attitudes toward the issue. However, interactions on other measures indicated that when Ss were moderately anonymous and highly responsible, those in the high as compared to low choice condition took greater personal responsibility, desired to be more persuasive, and were more extreme toward an unrelated social issue. These results suggest a partial self-perception effect and raise questions about the generalizability of previous findings.

Behavioural aspects of the management of diabetes mellitus: Education, self-care and metabolic control

A review is presented of factors relevant to the level of the knowledge, self-care and metabolic control of diabetic patients. Methods of assessing each of these are described, and ways of improving them reviewed. Recommendations are made for further work in this field. It is suggested that traditional education programmes have little clinical value beyond improving knowledge about diabetes. Among the recommendations made are approaches to the assessment and change of relevant health beliefs, and the use of behavioural methods of self-regulation, to improve the quality of self-care. The difficulties created by the variety of factors influencing metabolic control are discussed, with particular attention to the relevance of emotional stress.

Children's use of expectations as a source of information in language comprehension

Six studies of children's comprehension of the passive transformation and of the Minimum Distance Principle are reviewed and their results integrated. Children were in kindergarten through Grade 6, inclusive. Expectations about usual grammatical relations (e.g., agent/action combinations) significantly affected children's comprehension: sentences reflecting expectations were understood more often than sentences contradicting children's expressed expectations. Results are discussed within the framework of referential event strategies in understanding spoken language. Limits of the effect of children's expectation on comprehension are described, including general cognitive developmental status, relevant belief systems, and nature of the psycholinguistic task.

Psycholinguistic Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension

relations can be realized, given his knowledge of the world (19:215). The comprehender compares the linguistic input with what he or she imagines to be possible, given prior knowledge, and selects a plausible meaning. As a result, the same sentence may be interpreted differently by different listeners or readers, or by the same person at different times. Adams, Anderson, and Durkin conclude that successful reading emerges as a highly complex, interactive process in which what the reader brings to the page is as important as what is written. That is why comprehension always is a highly personal experience (26:11). Examining the role of knowledge structures or expectations, we may find implications for the teaching of reading. Frederiksen, Harris, and Duran (27) have identified three types of contexts that are usually available to help provide meaning when language is used in a natural way. The first type of context is conceptual, relating to beliefs and presuppositions. For example, in reading a story about a camping trip, a child who has been camping will have ideas about camping that will help him or her interpret the story. A teacher concerned with improving comprehension might enrich and expand children's concepts about camping, using experiences, objects, or pictures, or might call attention to relevant beliefs, presuppositions, or expectations about camping. The second type of context Frederiksen and associates describe is extralinguistic, relating to the setting in which language is used. A teacher might show children materials that are discussed in the story. From the child's perspective, other aspects of the extralinguistic context that may affect comprehension include at least two expectations: that the teacher will ask questions about the story and that the story (and the questions) will be meaningful. The third type of context that can be used to improve comprehension is the lin-

A Paradox of Knowing Whether

For example, given that Smith knows whether Brown is dead, we could determine whether Brown is dead or alive by finding out what Smith believes to be the case. This fact about knowledge can be expressed succinctly as follows: The relevant belief state of someone who knows whether p is a reliable indicator of the fact about p. Incorporation of this feature of knowledge can be viewed as an adequacy condition which must be met by any theory purporting to analyse knowledge. I will try to show that the 'standard' analysis of knowledge-the view that knowledge is justified true belief-fails to do justice to this feature of knowledge.