A Contextual Examination of St. Anselm\u27s Ontological Argument

Messages are more effective when framed to be congruent with individuals\u27 approach/avoidance motivation (Sherman, Mann, & Updegraff, 2006). Two experiments explored whether congruency might also effect consumer reactions by examining whether person-message fit enhances enjoyment of taste of a product, increases how fluid an advertisement is perceived to be, and heightens one\u27s willingness to buy a product and the overall product value. Study 1 demonstrated a congruency effect, where avoidance motivation scores positively predicted perceptions of taste/enjoyment of a sugar-free food, but only when the product advertisement was loss-framed. In the loss-frame condition, higher avoidance scores also related to increased ratings of advertisement quality. Unexpectedly, congruency effects were not found under gain-frame conditions. Study 2 examined if congruency effects would be accented in group settings. A main effect was expected, where participants in the group condition would rate the outcome variables higher than those in the individual condition. Study 2 demonstrated an accentuation effect, but not as expected. Overall this study broadens our awareness of factors that interact to influence attitudes, and perceptions of taste and message qualit

Developing and refining the methods for a ‘one-stop shop’ for research evidence about health systems

Background: Policymakers, stakeholders and researchers have not been able to find research evidence about health systems using an easily understood taxonomy of topics, know when they have conducted a comprehensive search of the many types of research evidence relevant to them, or rapidly identify decision-relevant information in their search results. Methods: To address these gaps, we developed an approach to building a ‘one-stop shop’ for research evidence about health systems. We developed a taxonomy of health system topics and iteratively refined it by drawing on existing categorization schemes and by using it to categorize progressively larger bundles of research evidence. We identified systematic reviews, systematic review protocols, and review-derived products through searches of Medline, hand searches of several databases indexing systematic reviews, hand searches of journals, and continuous scanning of listservs and websites. We developed an approach to providing ‘added value’ to existing content (e.g., coding systematic reviews according to the countries in which included studies were conducted) and to expanding the types of evidence eligible for inclusion (e.g., economic evaluations and health system descriptions). Lastly, we developed an approach to continuously updating the online one-stop shop in seven supported languages. Results: The taxonomy is organized by governance, financial, and delivery arrangements and by implementation strategies. The ‘one-stop shop’, called Health Systems Evidence, contains a comprehensive inventory of evidence briefs, overviews of systematic reviews, systematic reviews, systematic review protocols, registered systematic review titles, economic evaluations and costing studies, health reform descriptions and health system descriptions, and many types of added-value coding. It is continuously updated and new content is regularly translated into Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Conclusions: Policymakers and stakeholders can now easily access and use a wide variety of types of research evidence about health systems to inform decision-making and advocacy. Researchers and research funding agencies can use Health Systems Evidence to identify gaps in the current stock of research evidence and domains that could benefit from primary research, systematic reviews, and review overviews. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1478-4505-13-10) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Assessing Tourism Development from Sen’s Capability Approach

The purpose of this study is to assess tourism development in the context of Sen’s capability approach. The study developed a model to investigate the relationship between tourism development and human development while focusing on two countries, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The study applied a cointegration technique based on the Granger representation theorem. Overall, tourism development and human development reveals a tenuous relationship in both cases, reflecting some threshold effect. The importance of tourism growth is merited in the distribution of its benefits and the extent that tourism receipts are allocated to support human development (public health, education, safety, etc.). Rising incomes will not necessarily translate into human development performance, thereby rendering support to Sen’s contention that well-being should not be measured by its instrumental antecedents (such as income) alone. Private incomes through tourism expansion seem to matter most at lower levels of human development

A Contextual Examination of St. Anselm\u27s Ontological Argument

Messages are more effective when framed to be congruent with individuals\u27 approach/avoidance motivation (Sherman, Mann, & Updegraff, 2006). Two experiments explored whether congruency might also effect consumer reactions by examining whether person-message fit enhances enjoyment of taste of a product, increases how fluid an advertisement is perceived to be, and heightens one\u27s willingness to buy a product and the overall product value. Study 1 demonstrated a congruency effect, where avoidance motivation scores positively predicted perceptions of taste/enjoyment of a sugar-free food, but only when the product advertisement was loss-framed. In the loss-frame condition, higher avoidance scores also related to increased ratings of advertisement quality. Unexpectedly, congruency effects were not found under gain-frame conditions. Study 2 examined if congruency effects would be accented in group settings. A main effect was expected, where participants in the group condition would rate the outcome variables higher than those in the individual condition. Study 2 demonstrated an accentuation effect, but not as expected. Overall this study broadens our awareness of factors that interact to influence attitudes, and perceptions of taste and message qualit