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Glossary
Published in Pat Croskerry, Karen S. Cosby, Mark L. Graber, Hardeep Singh, Diagnosis, 2017
Pat Croskerry, Karen S. Cosby, Mark L. Graber, Hardeep Singh
need for cognition (NFC): a trait that recognizes the desire and enjoyment of effortful cognitive activity. People who score high on NFC seem to enjoy learning and deliberate cognitive activity. They may be less prone to error since they spend proportionately more time in Type 2 thinking and, therefore, less likely to be miserly with their cognitive effort.
The effects of message framing characteristics on physical activity education: A systematic review
Published in Cogent Medicine, 2019
Jayde Williams, Melissa Saken, Suzanne Gough, Wayne Hing
Gallagher and Updegraff (2011) was the only study to explore intrinsic (satisfaction, enjoyment) and extrinsic (appearance, health) exercise outcomes as motivators to participate in physical activity. Also, using the fit principle, they determined that extrinsic/gain-framed and intrinsic/loss framed were “fit” messages, whilst the alternatives—intrinsic/gain-framed and extrinsic/loss-framed were “non-fit” messages. Interestingly they found an interaction between a person’s need for cognition and which messages (“fit” or “non-fit”) effected physical activity participation. Need for cognition refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in effortful cognitive tasks (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). “Fit” messages were most appropriate for high need for cognition (higher message processing) and “non-fit” messages were more effective for those with a low need for cognition (lower message processing). In order to appropriately use this approach, it would be important to understand the populations level of cognitive processing. This may be particularly appropriate for a population where this could be estimated. For example, it may be concluded that university students would have a higher need for cognition as they are opting to participate in effortful cognitive tasks.
Health risk communication message comprehension is influenced by image inclusion
Published in Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, 2018
Francis A. M. Manno, Malcolm B. Lively, Sinai H. C. Manno, Shuk H. Cheng, Condon Lau
Persuasive texts are typically explicit and coherent. For readers with little prior knowledge, increasing the coherence appears to improve comprehension of the text (Yaros, 2006). However, increasing the text’s coherence may also have the effect of reducing the amount of active processing during reading because the text makes all the inferences for the reader (McNamara et al., 1996). An alternative explanation shifts the focus from the text to the reader. Cacioppo and Petty (1982) suggest that there are individuals whom possess a perpetual innate desire for understanding, or need for cognition, and that this need for cognition may explain why some people tend to engage in deeper levels of cognitive processing of persuasive communications regardless of external or internal text or message factors (Cacioppo, Petty, & Morris, 1983). The Need for Cognition (NFC) scale measures individual differences in people’s tendencies to ‘engage in and enjoy thinking’ (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Results of a study by Cacioppo et al. (1983) indicated that high-NFC individuals were more likely than low-NFC individuals to engage in message and issue-relevant thinking in response to a persuasive message. Our hypothesis is that demographic variables such as age, gender, year in school (e.g. freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior), or grade point average (GPA), will correlate to pre-text scores on the SKT and post-text scores on the SKT, but NFC will not since it is a measure of an innate tendency. Furthermore, individuals with high-NFC will change structural knowledge more than low-NFC individuals for risk communications with images.
Learning facts during aging: the benefits of curiosity
Published in Experimental Aging Research, 2018
Giulia Galli, Miroslav Sirota, Matthias J. Gruber, Bianca Elena Ivanof, Janani Ganesh, Maurizio Materassi, Alistair Thorpe, Vanessa Loaiza, Marinella Cappelletti, Fergus I. M. Craik
Although the relationship between curiosity and intellectual abilities during childhood and early adulthood is well recognized, little empirical work has been conducted on curiosity in older adults. Evidence exists that elderly individuals are more curious than young adults (Mascherek & Zimprich, 2012) and that in the elderly curiosity levels drive individual differences in crystallized intelligence (von Stumm & Deary, 2012). However, most studies focused on variables that, although in part conceptually overlapping, are only indirectly related to curiosity, such as need for cognition (the tendency for an individual to engage in effortful cognitive activities, Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) and openness to experience (a personality dimension of the Five Factor Model related to cognitive flexibility, need for variety and depth of emotional experience, McRae & John, 1992). Longitudinal studies have shown that during aging scores on need for cognition scales predicted global cognitive status after a few years (Baer et al., 2013) and were positively correlated with problem-solving abilities (Bye & Pushkar, 2009). In addition, older adults with higher openness to experience scores performed better in a number of cognitive tasks including memory, visual and spatial abilities (Sharp, Reynolds, Pedersen & Gatz, 2011) and had reduced age-related grey matter loss in brain regions associated with higher cognitive functioning (Taki et al., 2012). Taken together, these findings support anecdotal evidence on the benefits of a “hungry mind” in the elderly and suggest that personality traits related to curiosity mitigate age-related changes in cognition and brain structure. However, the specific contribution of curiosity in cognitive aging is still largely unknown.