Causal reasoning with mental models

This paper outlines the model-based theory of causal reasoning. It postulates that the core meanings of causal assertions are deterministic and refer to temporally-ordered sets of possibilities: A causes B to occur means that given A, B occurs, whereas A enables B to occur means that given A, it is possible for B to occur. The paper shows how mental models represent such assertions, and how these models underlie deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning yielding explanations. It reviews evidence both to corroborate the theory and to account for phenomena sometimes taken to be incompatible with it. Finally, it reviews neuroscience evidence indicating that mental models for causal inference are implemented within lateral prefrontal cortex.

Irritable bowel syndrome: an integrated explanatory model for clinical practice

BACKGROUND

Although irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a symptom-based diagnosis, clinicians' management of and communication about the disorder is often hampered by an unclear conceptual understanding of the nature of the problem. We aimed to elucidate an integrated explanatory model (EM) for IBS from the existing literature for pragmatic use in the clinical setting.

METHODS

Systematic and exploratory literature searches were performed in PubMed to identify publications on IBS and EMs.

KEY RESULTS

The searches did not identify a single, integrated EM for IBS. However, three main hypotheses were elucidated that could provide components with which to develop an IBS EM: (i) altered peripheral regulation of gut function (including sensory and secretory mechanisms); (ii) altered brain-gut signaling (including visceral hypersensitivity); and (iii) psychological distress. Genetic polymorphisms and epigenetic changes may, to some degree, underlie the etiology and pathophysiology of IBS and could increase the susceptibility to developing the disorder. The three model components also fit into one integrated explanation for abdominal symptoms and changes in stool habit. Additionally, IBS may share a common pathophysiological mechanism with other associated functional syndromes.

CONCLUSIONS & INFERENCES

It was possible to elucidate an integrated, three-component EM as a basis for clinicians to conceptualize the nature of IBS, with the potential to contribute to better diagnosis and management, and dialog with sufferers.

Reasons for attempting suicide: An exploratory study in Ghana

This study examined the reasons for suicide attempts among patients in Ghana. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 30 informants who had been hospitalized for attempted suicide. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyse the transcribed narratives, and five main themes emerged: 1) lack of support; 2) abandonment; 3) shame; 4) existential struggles; and 5) supernatural reasons. There were gender differences with abandonment reported by only women and shame associated with economic difficulties reported only by men. Findings are discussed within the context of a socio-cultural theory of suicide behaviour, and implications for the prevention of suicide and care of suicidal persons are suggested.

Unexpected low burden of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in sub-Saharan Africa region despite disastrous predictions: reasons and perspectives

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the development of a highly contagious disease called coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Ten months after the onset of the pandemic, America and Europe remain the most affected regions. Initially, experts predicted that Africa, the poorest continent with the most vulnerable population and health system, would be greatly affected by the ongoing outbreak. However, 240days after the first confirmed case, Africa is among the least affected region, with lower than expected incident cases and mortality. In this review, we discuss possible explanations and reasons for this unexpected low burden of COVID-19 in Africa. We focus on the characteristics of the virus, specificities of the sub-Saharan African population and local environment.

The Impact of Explanations on Layperson Trust in Artificial Intelligence-Driven Symptom Checker Apps: Experimental Study

BACKGROUND

Artificial intelligence (AI)-driven symptom checkers are available to millions of users globally and are advocated as a tool to deliver health care more efficiently. To achieve the promoted benefits of a symptom checker, laypeople must trust and subsequently follow its instructions. In AI, explanations are seen as a tool to communicate the rationale behind black-box decisions to encourage trust and adoption. However, the effectiveness of the types of explanations used in AI-driven symptom checkers has not yet been studied. Explanations can follow many forms, including why-explanations and how-explanations. Social theories suggest that why-explanations are better at communicating knowledge and cultivating trust among laypeople.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to ascertain whether explanations provided by a symptom checker affect explanatory trust among laypeople and whether this trust is impacted by their existing knowledge of disease.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey of 750 healthy participants was conducted. The participants were shown a video of a chatbot simulation that resulted in the diagnosis of either a migraine or temporal arteritis, chosen for their differing levels of epidemiological prevalence. These diagnoses were accompanied by one of four types of explanations. Each explanation type was selected either because of its current use in symptom checkers or because it was informed by theories of contrastive explanation. Exploratory factor analysis of participants' responses followed by comparison-of-means tests were used to evaluate group differences in trust.

RESULTS

Depending on the treatment group, two or three variables were generated, reflecting the prior knowledge and subsequent mental model that the participants held. When varying explanation type by disease, migraine was found to be nonsignificant (P=.65) and temporal arteritis, marginally significant (P=.09). Varying disease by explanation type resulted in statistical significance for input influence (P=.001), social proof (P=.049), and no explanation (P=.006), with counterfactual explanation (P=.053). The results suggest that trust in explanations is significantly affected by the disease being explained. When laypeople have existing knowledge of a disease, explanations have little impact on trust. Where the need for information is greater, different explanation types engender significantly different levels of trust. These results indicate that to be successful, symptom checkers need to tailor explanations to each user's specific question and discount the diseases that they may also be aware of.

CONCLUSIONS

System builders developing explanations for symptom-checking apps should consider the recipient's knowledge of a disease and tailor explanations to each user's specific need. Effort should be placed on generating explanations that are personalized to each user of a symptom checker to fully discount the diseases that they may be aware of and to close their information gap.

How people explain their own and others' behavior: a theory of lay causal explanations

A theoretical model is proposed that specifies lay causal theories of behavior; and supporting experimental evidence is presented. The model’s basic assumption is that different types of behavior trigger different hypotheses concerning the types of causes that may have brought about the behavior. Seven categories are distinguished that are assumed to serve as both behavior types and explanation types: goals, dispositions, temporary states such as emotions, intentional actions, outcomes, events, and stimulus attributes. The model specifies inference rules that lay people use when explaining behavior (actions are caused by goals; goals are caused by higher order goals or temporary states; temporary states are caused by dispositions, stimulus attributes, or events; outcomes are caused by actions, temporary states, dispositions, stimulus attributes, or events; events are caused by dispositions or preceding events). Two experiments are reported. Experiment 1 showed that free-response explanations followed the assumed inference rules. Experiment 2 demonstrated that explanations which match the inference rules are generated faster and more frequently than non-matching explanations. Together, the findings support models that incorporate knowledge-based aspects into the process of causal explanation. The results are discussed with respect to their implications for different stages of this process, such as the activation of causal hypotheses and their subsequent selection, as well as with respect to social influences on this process.

'It's not magic': A qualitative analysis of geriatric physicians' explanations of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation in hospital admissions

BACKGROUND

Discussing patient preferences for cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is routine in hospital admission for older people. The way the conversation is conducted plays an important role for patient comprehension and the ethics of decision making.

OBJECTIVE

The objective was to examine how CPR is explained in geriatric rehabilitation hospital admission interviews, focussing on circumstances in which physicians explain CPR and the content of these explanations.

METHOD

We recorded forty-three physician-patient admission interviews taking place in a hospital in French-speaking Switzerland, during which CPR was discussed. Data were analysed in French with thematic and conversation analysis, and the extracts used for publication were translated into English.

RESULTS

Mean patient age was 83.7 years; 53.5% were admitted for rehabilitation after surgery or traumatism. CPR was explained in 53.8% of the conversations. Most explanations were brief and concerned the technical procedures, mentioning only rarely potential outcome. With one exception, medical indication and prognosis of CPR did not feature in these explanations. Explanations occurred either before the patient's answer (as part of the question about CPR preferences) or after the patient's answer, generated by patients' indecision, misunderstanding and by the need to clarify answers.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The scarcity and simplicity of CPR explanations highlight a reluctance to have in-depth discussions and reflect the assumption that CPR does not need explaining. Providing patients with accurate information about the outcomes and risks of CPR is incremental for reaching informed decisions and patient-centred care.

PATIENT CONTRIBUTION

Patients were involved in the data collection stage of the study.

Testing the limits of structural thinking about gender

When seeking to explain social regularities (such as gender differences in the labor market) people often rely on internal features of the targets, frequently neglecting structural and systemic factors external to the targets. For example, people might think women leave the job market after childbirth because they are less competent or are better suited for child-rearing than men, thereby eliding socio-cultural and economic factors that disadvantage women. Across two studies (total N = 192) we probe 4- and 5-year-olds and 7- and 8-year-olds' internal versus structural reasoning about gender. We explore the evaluative and behavioral implications of this reasoning process with both novel gendered behaviors that were experimentally created and familiar gendered behaviors that exist outside of a lab context. We show that children generate more structural explanations, evaluate the structural explanation more positively, expect behaviors to be more mutable, and evaluate gender non-conforming behaviors more positively when structural cues are provided. However, we also show that such information may be of limited effectiveness at reducing pre-existing group-based discriminatory behaviors: children continue to report less willingness to affiliate with peers who display non-conforming behaviors even in the presence of structural cues. Taken together, these results provide evidence concerning children's structural reasoning about gender categories and shed new light on how such reasoning might affect social evaluations and behavioral intentions.

Revealing drivers and risks for power grid frequency stability with explainable AI

Stable operation of an electric power system requires strict operational limits for the grid frequency. Fluctuations and external impacts can cause large frequency deviations and increased control efforts. Although these complex interdependencies can be modeled using machine learning algorithms, the black box character of many models limits insights and applicability. In this article, we introduce an explainable machine learning model that accurately predicts frequency stability indicators for three European synchronous areas. Using Shapley additive explanations, we identify key features and risk factors for frequency stability. We show how load and generation ramps determine frequency gradients, and we identify three classes of generation technologies with converse impacts. Control efforts vary strongly depending on the grid and time of day and are driven by ramps as well as electricity prices. Notably, renewable power generation is central only in the British grid, while forecasting errors play a major role in the Nordic grid.

Older persons' definitions and explanations of elder abuse in the Netherlands

In this article we explore older persons' definitions of and explanations for elder abuse in the Netherlands by means of interviews with older persons. A qualitative study was conducted based on semistructured interviews with 35 older persons who had no experience with abuse. Our findings show that older persons participating in our study define elder abuse foremost as physical violence that is performed intentionally. The study participants explain elder abuse as a result of the dependency and vulnerability of older persons, of changing norms and values, and of changes in the position of older persons in society, which result in disrespect toward older persons and a lack of social control and responsibility. The older persons' explanations for the occurrence of abuse mainly focus on societal changes; older persons seem to regard elder abuse primarily as a societal problem. This understanding of, and explanation for, elder abuse may influence their detection and reporting behavior, as they may tend to acknowledge only severe cases of intentional physical violence that leave clear and therefore physically detectable evidence.

Embedding Scientific Explanations Into Storybooks Impacts Children's Scientific Discourse and Learning

Children’s understanding of unobservable scientific entities largely depends on testimony from others, especially through parental explanations that highlight the mechanism underlying a scientific entity. Mechanistic explanations are particularly helpful in promoting children’s conceptual understanding, yet they are relatively rare in parent–child conversations. The current study aimed to increase parent–child use of mechanistic conversation by modeling this language in a storybook about the mechanism of electrical circuits. We also examined whether an increase in mechanistic conversation was associated with science learning outcomes, measured at both the dyadic- and child-level. In the current study, parents and their 4- to 5-year-old children (N = 60) were randomly assigned to read a book containing mechanistic explanations (n = 32) or one containing non-mechanistic explanations (n = 28). After reading the book together, parent–child joint understanding of electricity’s mechanism was tested by asking the dyad to assemble electrical components of a circuit toy so that a light would turn on. Finally, child science learning outcomes were examined by asking children to assemble a novel circuit toy and answer comprehension questions to gauge their understanding of electricity’s mechanism. Results indicate that dyads who read storybooks containing mechanistic explanations were (1) more successful at completing the circuit (putting the pieces together to make the light turn on) and (2) used more mechanistic language than dyads assigned to the non-mechanistic condition. Children in the mechanistic condition also had better learning outcomes, but only if they engaged in more mechanistic discourse with their parent. We discuss these results using a social interactionist framework to highlight the role of input and interaction for learning. We also highlight how these results implicate everyday routines such as book reading in supporting children’s scientific discourse and understanding.

Causes of Outcome Learning: a causal inference-inspired machine learning approach to disentangling common combinations of potential causes of a health outcome

Nearly all diseases are caused by different combinations of exposures. Yet, most epidemiological studies focus on estimating the effect of a single exposure on a health outcome. We present the Causes of Outcome Learning approach (CoOL), which seeks to discover combinations of exposures that lead to an increased risk of a specific outcome in parts of the population. The approach allows for exposures acting alone and in synergy with others. The road map of CoOL involves (i) a pre-computational phase used to define a causal model; (ii) a computational phase with three steps, namely (a) fitting a non-negative model on an additive scale, (b) decomposing risk contributions and (c) clustering individuals based on the risk contributions into subgroups; and (iii) a post-computational phase on hypothesis development, validation and triangulation using new data before eventually updating the causal model. The computational phase uses a tailored neural network for the non-negative model on an additive scale and layer-wise relevance propagation for the risk decomposition through this model. We demonstrate the approach on simulated and real-life data using the R package 'CoOL'. The presentation focuses on binary exposures and outcomes but can also be extended to other measurement types. This approach encourages and enables researchers to identify combinations of exposures as potential causes of the health outcome of interest. Expanding our ability to discover complex causes could eventually result in more effective, targeted and informed interventions prioritized for their public health impact.

Deathbed Visions: Visitors and Vistas

This review article examines the recent (i.e., since the late-1990s) research on deathbed visions (DBVs). The reviewed material includes the features of DBV experiences, terminology and definitional issues in the literature, and prevalence reports of DBVs by family members/caregivers of dying persons, healthcare professionals, terminally ill patients, hospice palliative care volunteers, and nursing home staff. The impact of DBVs on dying persons, why deathbed visitors appear, and possible explanations for DBVs are also considered. The lessons learned from the literature review include the following: DBVs are common experiences that cannot be easily explained, and they typically have positive impacts on dying persons, not the least of which is lessening the fear of death. The literature review also highlights the need for training and education about DBVs.

Exploration of the understanding and etiology of ADHD in HIV/AIDS as observed by adolescents with HIV/AIDS, caregivers and health workers- using case vignettes

Background

Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent behavioural disorder among children and adolescents with HIV infection (CA-HIV).

Objective

To explore the explanations used by adolescents with HIV/AIDS, caregivers and health workers to understand and explain ADHD in HIV/AIDS.

Methods

This was a qualitative sub-study nested within a larger research project whose focus was on mental health among HIV infected children and adolescents in Kampala and Masaka, Uganda (CHAKA study, 2014–2017). Participants were recruited from five study sites: two in Kampala and three in Masaka. We purposively sampled 10 ADHD adolescent-caregiver dyads equally divided between the Masaka and Kampala sites, age groups and gender. Semi-structured interviews were carried out within 12 months of baseline. Ten HIV health workers (two from each study site) participated. The ten health workers were assessed about their knowledge related to psychiatric disorders (especially ADHD in HIV/AIDS), services available for such clients and gaps in service provision for CA-HIV with behavioural / emotional disorders. Participants were recruited over one month. Taped interviews were transcribed and preliminary coding categories generated based on the research questions. Broad categories of related codes were then generated to derive a coding framework. Thematic analyses were conducted to elicit common themes emerging from the transcripts.

Results

Explanations used by respondents to express their understanding related to ADHD among CA-HIV included; psychosocial stressors, biomedical manifestations, personal traits and supernaturalism, which affected health seeking behaviour.

Conclusion

In contexts similar to those in Uganda, treatment approaches for ADHD among HIV positive CA-HIV should consider the explanations provided by CA-HIV, caregivers to CA-HIV and HIV health workers.

Children's developing understanding of economic inequality and their place within it

Income inequality is growing in many parts of the world and, for the poorest children in a society, is associated with multiple, negative, developmental outcomes. This review of the research literature considers how childrens' and adolescents' understanding of economic inequality changes with age. It highlights shifts in conceptual understanding (from 'having and not having', to social structural and moral explanations), moral reasoning and the impact of the agents of socialization from parents to the media and cultural norms and discourses. It also examines how social processes affect judgements and the importance of an emerging sense of self in relation to questions of economic inequality. Finally, the review covers methodological considerations and suggests pathways for future research.

An instructional design process based on expert knowledge for teaching students how mechanisms are explained

In biology and physiology courses, students face many difficulties when learning to explain mechanisms, a topic that is demanding due to the immense complexity and abstract nature of molecular and cellular mechanisms. To overcome these difficulties, we asked the following question: how does an instructor transform their understanding of biological mechanisms and other difficult-to-learn topics so that students can comprehend them? To address this question, we first reviewed a model of the components used by biologists to explain molecular and cellular mechanisms: the MACH model, with the components of methods (M), analogies (A), context (C), and how (H). Next, instructional materials were developed and the teaching activities were piloted with a physical MACH model. Students who used the MACH model to guide their explanations of mechanisms exhibited both improvements and some new difficulties. Third, a series of design-based research cycles was applied to bring the activities with an improved physical MACH model into biology and biochemistry courses. Finally, a useful rubric was developed to address prevalent student difficulties. Here, we present, for physiology and biology instructors, the knowledge and resources for explaining molecular and cellular mechanisms in undergraduate courses with an instructional design process aimed at realizing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching. Our four-stage process could be adapted to advance instruction with a range of models in the life sciences.

The Effect of Realistic Contexts on Ontological Judgments of Novel Entities

Although a great deal of research has focused on ontological judgments in preschoolers, very little has examined ontological judgments in older children. The present study asked 10-year-olds and adults (N = 94) to judge the reality status of known real, known imagined, and novel entities presented in simple and elaborate contexts and to explain their judgments. Although judgments were generally apt, participants were more likely to endorse imagined and novel entities when the entities were presented in elaborate contexts. When asked to explain their reasoning, participants at both ages cited firsthand experience for real entities and general knowledge for imagined entities. For novel entities, participants referred most to indirect experiences when entities were presented in simple contexts and to general knowledge when those entities were presented in elaborate contexts. These results suggest that rich contextual information continues to be an important influence on ontological judgments past the preschool years.

Explanations for medically unexplained symptoms: a qualitative study on GPs in daily practice consultations

BACKGROUND

General practice is the centre of care for patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). Providing explanations for MUS, i.e. making sense of symptoms, is considered to be an important part of care for MUS patients. However, little is known how general practitioners (GPs) do this in daily practice.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore how GPs explain MUS to their patients during daily general practice consultations.

METHODS

A thematic content analysis was performed of how GPs explained MUS to their patients based on 39 general practice consultations involving patients with MUS.

RESULTS

GP provided explanations in nearly all consultations with MUS patients. Seven categories of explanation components emerged from the data: defining symptoms, stating causality, mentioning contributing factors, describing mechanisms, excluding explanations, discussing the severity of symptoms and normalizing symptoms. No pattern of how GPs constructed explanations with the various categories was observed. In general, explanations were communicated as a possibility and in a patient-specific way; however, they were not very detailed.

CONCLUSION

Although explanations for MUS are provided in most MUS consultations, there seems room for improving the explanations given in these consultations. Further studies on the effectiveness of explanations and on the interaction between patients and GP in constructing these explanations are required in order to make MUS explanations more suitable in daily primary care practice.

Prompting Children's Belief Revision About Balance Through Primary and Secondary Sources of Evidence

Prior evidence has shown that children's understanding of balance proceeds through stages. Children go from a stage where they lack a consistent theory (No Theory), to becoming Center Theorists at around age 6 (believing that all objects balance in their geometric center), to Mass Theorists at around age 8, when they begin to consider the distribution of objects' mass. In this study we adapted prior testing paradigms to examine 5-year-olds' understanding of balance and compared children's learning about balance from evidence presented through primary sources (a guided activity) or secondary sources (picture books). Most of the research on young children's understanding of balance has been conducted using a single object, weighted either proportionally (symmetrical object) or disproportionally (asymmetrical object). In this study, instead of using a single object, 5-year-olds (N = 102) were shown 4 pairs of objects, two with the same weight and two with different weight. Children were told to place the objects on a beam where they thought they would balance. We found evidence for an intermediate level of understanding. Transition Theorists represent children who have two distinct theories, one for balancing same weight objects, and one for balancing different weight objects, but one of these theories is incorrect. Following the assessment of children's understanding, we compared their learning about balance from evidence that was either presented through primary sources (a guided activity) or secondary sources (picture books). Children learn equally well from both sources of evidence. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications.

Bridging a Gap in Coherence: The Coordination of Comprehension Processes When Viewing Visual Narratives

Scene Perception and Event Comprehension Theory (SPECT) posits that understanding picture stories depends upon a coordination of two processes: (1) integrating new information into the current event model that is coherent with it (i.e., mapping) and (2) segmenting experiences into distinct event models (i.e., shifting). In two experiments, we investigated competing hypotheses regarding how viewers coordinate the mapping process of bridging inference generation and the shifting process of event segmentation by manipulating the presence/absence of Bridging Action pictures (i.e., creating coherence gaps) in wordless picture stories. The Computational Effort Hypothesis says that experiencing a coherence gap prompts event segmentation and the additional computational effort to generate bridging inferences. Thus, it predicted a positive relationship between event segmentation and explanations when Bridging Actions were absent. Alternatively, the Coherence Gap Resolution Hypothesis says that experiencing a coherence gap prompt generating a bridging inference to close the gap, which obviates segmentation. Thus, it predicted a negative relationship between event segmentation and the production of explanations. Replicating prior work, viewers were more likely to segment and generate explanations when Bridging Action pictures were absent than when they were present. Crucially, the relationship between explanations and segmentation was negative when Bridging Action pictures were absent, consistent with the Coherence Gap Resolution Hypothesis. Unexpectedly, the relationship was positive when Bridging Actions were present. The results are consistent with SPECT's assumption that mapping and shifting processes are coordinated, but how they are coordinated depends upon the experience of a coherence gap.

Explanations for infertility: The case of women in rural Ghana

Infertility is a troubling condition for couples, especially for women, in pronatalist cultures. The ways in which infertility is explained have important effects on the stigma associated with childlessness and thus on the suffering it causes. This article explored the explanations for infertility among involuntarily childless women in the North-East and Ashanti regions of Ghana. Thirty infertile married women were interviewed, 15 from each region, by using a semi-structured interview protocol. A phenomenological study design and thematic analysis were used to explore the aetiological explanations of their infertility. The data from the Ashanti region was transcribed verbatim from Twi to English, coded, and analysed into themes unlike the data from the North-East which was already in English. Most of these infertile women attributed their condition to supernatural factors irrespective of their settings, level of education, and religion. They proffered such explanations for conditions for which they could not readily pinpoint causes or when these were for them beyond comprehension. Other explanations of infertility were medical, such as fluid in the ovaries and hormonal imbalance. Moreover, lifestyle factors such as the use of contraceptives or having had an abortion were mentioned. Some women mentioned that the cause of their infertility had not been found. Health professionals should educate women on reproductive health issues. Counsellors and therapists should educate would-be couples on the possible challenges in marriages, especially concerning childlessness and infertility. Moreover, to reduce stigma, it is essential that the communities are educated on the documented causes of infertility.

Tautological formal explanations: does prior knowledge affect their satisfiability?

It is known that formal explanations with categorical labels are more satisfying than explicit tautologies. However, would they still be more satisfying if they are implicitly tautological themselves? In two experiments, we compared the degree of satisfaction between tautological formal explanations, explicit tautologies, and proper explanations. Additionally, we examined whether participants knew the correct definitions for the labels used in the formal explanations. Finally, we asked whether cultural and linguistic differences can play a role in the treatment of formal explanations with categorical labels. To this end, the first experiment involved Chilean students (N = 50), and the second experiment involved Russian students (N = 51). It was found that formal explanations, despite their intentional tautology, were still rated as more convincing compared to explicit tautologies (but less convincing than proper explanations). Furthermore, this effect did not depend on participants' previous knowledge (the label's definitions) or linguistic and cultural background. Taking all this into account, we consider this effect as a relatively universal psychological phenomenon and relate our findings to existing theories of formal explanations.

Effects of explanations and precise anchors on salary offers

Two studies were conducted which examined explanations and precise anchors on counteroffers and perceptions in a salary negotiation. Study 1 found that precise offers reduced counteroffers compared to round offers, but explanations focused on internal equity concerns or external equity concerns had no effect on counteroffers. Study 2 also found that precise offers reduced counteroffers compared to round offers. Explanations, which were manipulated to focus on constraint or disparagement rationales, failed to affect counteroffers, but a constraint explanation led to higher attributions of competence compared to a disparagement explanation or no explanation. These results suggest that precise offers are an effective tactic for reducing counteroffers and that explanations are relatively unimportant. Further research is needed to determine under what conditions an explanation may improve or harm negotiation outcomes.

Quality of Explanation as an Indicator of Fraction Magnitude Understanding

Students' explanations of their mathematical thinking and conclusions have become a greater part of the assessment landscape in recent years. With a sample of 71 fourth-grade students at risk for mathematics learning disabilities, we investigated the relation between student accuracy in comparing the magnitude of fractions and the quality of students' explanations of those comparisons, as well as the relation between those measures and scores on a criterion test: released fraction items from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. We also considered the extent to which reasoning and language contribute to the prediction. Results indicated a significant moderate correlation between accuracy and explanation quality. Commonality analyses indicated that explanation quality accounts for little variance in National Assessment of Educational Progress scores beyond what is accounted for by traditional measures of magnitude understanding. Implications for instruction and assessment are discussed.

Action-based explanations as a basis for the analysis and design of the social world

In sociology, the question of what it means to explain social phenomena and how this relates to the purpose of the social sciences is important but nowadays rarely asked. This article elaborates on this question and provides an answer by outlining the program of "explanatory sociology" as a branch of the modern social science approach. It is shown that, in this framework, to explain means to uncover cause-effect relationships based on models of individuals who are assumed the central force in social life. This idea is taken further to uncover specific challenges that individuals face in social life and how and why they establish and manage (or do not) social forms that help to organize the world from the viewpoint of their abilities and needs. Such action-oriented explanations have been presented and developed in sociology since its very beginning. Two main forms or logics to construct action-based explanations are outlined and developed due to the form and function of the used action theory or model. The article contributes to the discussion about the form and task of sociological theorizing by presenting action-based explanations as a form of sociological theorizing that defines a clear task in exploring challenges in social life and assessing possible forms of coping with them from the perspective of individuals. By doing so, two main ways of broadening explanations are considered and compared in light of what the purpose of sociology might be.