ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access 2 The effect of abstract versus concrete 3 framing on judgments of biological and 4 psychological bases of behavior 5Q1 Nancy S. Kim1*, Samuel G. B. Johnson2, Woo-kyoung Ahn2 and Joshua Knobe3678 9 Abstract 10 Human behavior is frequently described both in abstract, general terms and in concrete, specific terms. We asked 11 whether these two ways of framing equivalent behaviors shift the inferences people make about the biological and 12 psychological bases of those behaviors. In five experiments, we manipulated whether behaviors are presented concretely 13 (i.e. with reference to a specific person, instantiated in the particular context of that person's life) or abstractly (i.e. with 14 reference to a category of people or behaviors across generalized contexts). People judged concretely framed behaviors 15 to be less biologically based and, on some dimensions, more psychologically based than the same behaviors framed in 16 the abstract. These findings held true for both mental disorders (Experiments 1 and 2) and everyday behaviors 17 (Experiments 4 and 5) and yielded downstream consequences for the perceived efficacy of disorder treatments 18 (Experiment 3). Implications for science educators, students of science, and members of the lay public are discussed. 19 Keywords: Person perception, Causal attribution, Explanation, Framing effect, Science education 20Q2 Significance 21 In everyday life, we tend to frame behaviors in different 22 ways. Sometimes we talk about behavior in general terms 23 (e.g. some people stay calm in competitive situations; some 24 people lose pleasure in activities that they once enjoyed). At 25 other times, we talk about those same behaviors with 26 reference to particular people in the context of their lives 27 (e.g. Allen stayed calm during his figure-skating competi28 tion; Dan no longer takes pleasures in long country drives). 29 The question is whether these different kinds of descrip30 tions matter; that is, does framing affect the inferences we 31 make about those behaviors? Although these abstract and 32 concrete descriptions seem to essentially depict the same 33 behaviors, we found that the two levels of description lead 34 to different judgments about how to explain the behavior. 35 Across five studies, participants favored biological explana36 tions (e.g. brain chemistry; genetics) more for abstract de37 scriptions than for concrete cases and they favored some 38 psychological explanations (e.g. intentions; emotions) more 39 for concrete cases than for abstract descriptions. These 40shifts in people's preferences occurred both for ordinary 41behaviors (e.g. Allen's calm behavior) and mental disorder 42symptoms (e.g. delusions). As neuroscience and genetics 43research have increasingly been capturing the public's at44tention, we argue that these results have important im45plications for science education and for public health 46communication. 47In the real world, unusual human behaviors (e.g. the 48symptoms of schizophrenia) are often described at one 49of two distinct levels of abstraction. At one level, behav50iors are described in the abstract, as generalized across 51individuals. For example, when we google the word 52"schizophrenia," the websites that immediately come 53up-from the National Institute of Mental Health, Men54tal Health America, National Alliance for the Mentally 55Ill, Wikipedia, schizophrenia.com, and so on-provide 56abstract descriptions of schizophrenia and its symptoms 57(e.g. delusions). Abstract descriptions are also found 58when we search through an encyclopedia, dictionary, or 59medical handbook. At another level, we also talk about 60specific instances of the same behaviors (e.g. a woman 61who strongly believes that the next-door neighbor is her 62husband when in fact they have not met). One might 63learn about the concrete symptoms of schizophrenia via * Correspondence: n.kim@northeastern.edu 1Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, 125 Nightingale Hall, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ DOI 10.1186/s41235-017-0056-5 64 the depiction of a particular person in a film (e.g. A 65 Beautiful Mind; Howard, 2001), book (e.g. I Know This 66 Much Is True; Lamb, 2008), or magazine article about an 67 individual. One might also learn by observing such 68 symptoms first-hand in a friend or family member, or 69 hear about other specific cases by word of mouth. 70 Our central question is whether there is any effect of 71 the level of abstraction at which the behaviors are de72 scribed. Previous studies showed that concrete examples 73 affect judgments more strongly than abstract descrip74 tions do, because concrete examples are more salient, 75 memorable, or convincing (e.g. Borgida & Nisbett, 1977; 76 Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997; see also Semin & Fiedler, 77 1991 for different ways of construing abstract versus 78 concrete descriptions). In the current work, we ask 79 whether learning about behaviors in the abstract versus 80 from a concrete instance significantly shifts the kinds of 81 inferences laypeople then draw about the behavior. In 82 particular, we approach this question in terms of two dif83 ferent types of explanations for behaviors that are perva84 sive in lay discourse (as well as scientific): psychological 85 and biological explanations. 86 People often see human behaviors being explained in 87 terms of psychological constructs. For instance, one might 88 explain that a person has been feeling depressed because 89 she is under too much unrelenting stress at work. More 90 recently, as the field of neuroscience has rapidly pro91 gressed, people have also become familiar with biological 92 explanations for behaviors (O'Connor & Joffe, 2013). For 93 example, one could also explain that a person has been 94 feeling depressed due to a neurochemical imbalance. As 95 we will see in the next section, there are multiple possible 96 ways in which the level of abstraction at which behaviors 97 are depicted (i.e. abstractly or concretely) affects which 98 types of explanations (i.e. psychological and biological) 99 laypeople believe to be more plausible. 100 Relations between abstract versus concrete framing and 101 biological versus psychological explanations 102 We hypothesize that laypeople are relatively accepting of 103 biological explanations of behaviors in the abstract, but 104 are more reluctant to accept such explanations for the 105 behavior of concrete individuals. For instance, when con106 templating generalized anxiety disorder, laypeople may be 107 generally accepting of neurological or genetic exp108 lanations. Yet, when confronted with a particular concrete 109 individual with generalized anxiety disorder displaying 110 specific anxiety symptoms, people may be less inclined to 111 endorse biological explanations and instead explain that 112 individual's symptoms as intentional or controllable. Such 113 findings could have considerable implications for public 114 health, given that judgments of intentionality or control115 lability are critical in driving stigma towards abnormal be116 haviors and the stigmatizing attitudes of others have 117enormous impact on treatment seeking, treatment avoid118ance, and benefits from treatment (e.g. Pescosolido, 119Martin, Lang, & Olafsdottir, 2008). 120A recent study found empirical support for a similar hy121pothesis in practicing mental health clinicians' inferences 122about biological and psychological bases of symptoms of 123mental disorders (Kim, Ahn, Johnson, & Knobe, 2016). 124We found that hallmark symptoms of disorders described 125in the abstract led expert clinicians to endorse their bio126logical basis more strongly, and their psychological basis 127less strongly, than when the same symptoms were de128scribed concretely (i.e. in terms of individual cases). For 129instance, clinicians judged a disorder "characterized by 130loss of pleasure" involving "feeling a substantially dimin131ished interest in most activities, including activities found 132enjoyable in the past" to be more biologically caused than 133Dan's problems of no longer showing "interest in most ac134tivities, no longer taking pleasure in golfing or long coun135try drives, even though these used to be some of his very 136favorite weekend activities." In addition, clinicians were 137more likely to endorse the effectiveness of medication 138when they received the abstract description than when 139they received the concrete description, even though a pre140test verified that the two descriptions were judged to be 141essentially equivalent. 142However, it is unclear whether these findings are 143generalizable outside the population of clinicians and 144the domain of mental health. It is possible that clinicians 145are a special case, because in their intensive initial train146ing and continuing education, clinicians generally learn 147biological explanations for behavior in abstract form. 148Much like laypeople, clinicians frequently encounter psy149chological explanations in their ordinary concrete inter150actions, and in their training, clinicians are exposed to 151psychological evaluations of individual case studies in 152clinical practice and through client case formulations 153(Eells, Kendjelic, & Lucas, 1998). Importantly, however, 154clinicians are also exposed throughout their training to 155biological explanations through more abstract discussions 156in textbooks and research articles (e.g. describing new 157evidence for the neurochemical bases of schizophrenia). 158By contrast, laypeople have a great deal of concrete experi159ence with psychological explanation, but compared to 160clinicians, they typically have far less exposure to abstract 161discussions of biological explanation. One might therefore 162predict that laypeople would not show the effect observed 163among trained clinicians. 164One might even further argue that because psycho165logical states (e.g. intentions, stress) are not tangible in 166nature, laypeople may actually see them as being more 167abstract than biological states, which refer to tangible 168things such as the physical brain. Furthermore, from a 169reductionist viewpoint, biological explanations would be 170considered lower level explanations for behaviors than Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 2 of 17 171 psychological explanations for the same behaviors. 172 Within the hierarchy of levels of explanation, psycho173 logical explanations are more abstract than biological 174 ones, being relatively lacking in concrete, physically 175 grounded detail (e.g. Dennett, 1971). As a result, lay176 people might find abstractly framed stimuli to be more 177 compatible with psychological construals of behaviors 178 than with biological construals. 179 Still, there are some potential reasons to expect that 180 the framing effects previously obtained with practicing 181 clinicians may turn out to reflect a broader, more gen182 eral phenomenon. First, in linguistics, a distinction is 183 made between generic statements (i.e. generalizations 184 that are made about entire categories of people or 185 things, such as "girls wear pink") and non-generic state186 ments (i.e. statements that are not generic, such as de187 scriptions of specific individuals like "Mary wears pink;" 188 see Cimpian & Erickson, 2012). Studies suggest that lay189 people prefer to explain generics in terms of inherent 190 features (e.g. pink is delicate and girls are hardwired to 191 be attracted to it) rather than external features (e.g. it is 192 merely a societal convention for girls to wear pink; Cim193 pian & Salomon, 2014). In addition, biological properties 194 are perceived to be more permanent, immutable, and 195 timeless than psychological properties (e.g. Dar-Nimrod 196 & Heine, 2011; Haslam, Bastian, & Bissett, 2004). For in197 stance, the more that people with depression attribute 198 their symptoms to biological factors such as brain abnor199 malities or genes, the more pessimistic they are about 200 recovery (Lebowitz, Ahn, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2013). 201 Taken together, findings such as these suggest that bio202 logical explanations may seem more compatible with ab203 stract framing, which describes timeless patterns, than 204 with concrete framing, which describes transient events. 205 Second, psychological explanations may be more salient 206 to laypeople when a behavior is described concretely 207 than when it is described in the abstract. This idea is 208 supported by past work on people's intuitions about free 209 will. When laypeople are told in the abstract about a 210 universe in which everything is fully determined, they 211 tend to say that no agent in this universe can be morally 212 responsible for his or her behavior, but when people are 213 told about one specific agent in the same deterministic 214 universe, they tend to say that this specific agent actually 215 is morally responsible (Nichols & Knobe, 2007). This ef216 fect arises because people reading a concrete case are 217 more inclined than are people reading about an abstract 218 case to think that the agent's behavior was best ex219 plained by his or her psychological states (Murray & 220 Nahmias, 2014). Thus, concrete descriptions of individ221 ual agents performing specific actions may make psycho222 logical states (e.g. intentions, feelings) salient in a way 223 that more abstract descriptions do not (Nichols & 224 Knobe, 2007; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2008). 225Overview of experiments 226The main goal of the current experiments was to exam227ine whether laypeople's biological (and psychological) 228judgments are affected by the abstract versus concrete 229framing of behaviors and, if so, in what direction judg230ments are affected. We tested these hypotheses by meas231uring people's endorsements of various biological and 232psychological explanations for behavior, across a range 233of equivalent abstract and concrete cases. 234There are many ways to manipulate the abstractness 235of behavior descriptions and many ways to determine 236which levels of abstractness should be of primary inter237est. We modeled our experimental manipulations on a 238distinction frequently encountered in the real world. 239The abstract version simulates general descriptions of 240behaviors; that is, these descriptions make reference to 241people exhibiting the behavior in general and describes 242behaviors in the abstract (e.g. coming up with strange 243beliefs that are contrary to fact and that persist strongly 244despite having no evidence to support them), as in no245sologies such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 246of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, 5th ed., American Psychi247atric Association, 2013 Q3). The concrete version makes ref248erence to a particular person and describes behaviors as 249specifically instantiated in the context of that person's 250life (e.g. Jenny has developed the strong belief that the 251man living next door is her husband), as in casebook 252training manuals for learning nosologies such as DSM-5 253Clinical Cases (Barnhill, 2013). This way of manipulating 254abstractness is the same as that deployed in Kim et al.'s 255(2016) study with clinicians, allowing us to compare the 256current results (Studies 1, 2, and 3) with those from 257experts in the domain. Unlike in Kim et al.'s (2016) 258study, however, we also used stimuli that are not symp259toms of mental disorders because of the current focus 260on laypeople rather than clinicians (Studies 4 and 5). For 261example, participants in our studies might read about ei262ther how some people stay calm during competitive situ263ations (abstract description described generally) or how 264Allen stayed calm during a figure-skating competition 265(concrete, individual case described within the specific 266context of that person's life). 267Our prediction is that biological explanations are 268more strongly endorsed in the abstract than in the 269concrete, and that psychological explanations of be270havior are more strongly endorsed in concrete cases 271than in the abstract. That is, we would expect lay272people to think that brain chemistry, neural structure, 273and so on are better explanations of calm perform274ance in general than of Allen's calm performance in 275particular. Conversely, we predict that explanations 276attributing calm performance to intentions or emo277tions would be endorsed more for Allen's calm per278formance than for calm performance in general. Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 3 of 17 279 We tested these predictions across five experiments. 280 Experiments 1 and 2 compared laypeople's judgments of 281 the biological (and psychological) bases of various men282 tal disorders. Each disorder was described in a con283 cretely or abstractly framed vignette, judged by pretest 284 participants to be essentially equivalent. Experiment 3 285 tested whether these inferences have downstream conse286 quences for how people would choose to intervene on 287 disordered behavior-by using medication or by using 288 psychotherapy. Finally, Experiments 4 and 5 extended 289 these results beyond the domain of mental disorders, 290 examining lay judgments for behaviors that are uncom291 mon (and hence in need of explanation) but not the re292 sult of mental disorders. 293 Experiment 1 294 Experiment 1 tested whether laypeople's causal attribu295 tions for disordered behavior are shifted by abstract versus 296 concrete framing. Although clinicians tend to view behav297 iors as more biologically based in the abstract than in the 298 concrete, and more psychologically based in the concrete 299 than in the abstract (Kim et al., 2016), it is unclear 300 whether this effect is largely induced by clinical training 301 and practice, or whether it would also extend to laypeople. 302 This question has considerable practical import, be303 cause laypeople's attributions for mental disorders influ304 ence many outcomes of real-world importance. More 305 biological attributions for disordered behavior reduce 306 judgments of blame for symptoms (e.g. Corrigan & 307 Watson, 2004), but can increase essentialism (Haslam & 308 Ernst, 2002), leading to greater pessimism about recov309 ery (e.g. Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011; Lebowitz et al., 310 2013). Furthermore, biological attributions for symptoms 311 are associated with the belief that medication is a more 312 effective treatment than psychotherapy (e.g. Iselin & 313 Addis, 2003; Luk & Bond, 1992; Yopchick & Kim, 2009). 314 The potential for abstract versus concrete framing to 315 affect such construals is a pressing issue in need of 316 examination, given that people frequently encounter 317 both abstract descriptions of disorder symptoms (e.g. on 318 WebMD) and concrete cases (e.g. their loved ones who 319 have disorder symptoms). 320 In addition, we probed the boundaries of this framing ef321 fect by asking participants about various types of biological 322 and psychological attributions. In previous work (Kim et al., 323 2016), clinicians were asked to what extent the behaviors 324 are "biologically based" or "psychologically based" in gen325 eral, rather than about specific types of biological and psy326 chological causes. Yet, there are many different kinds of 327 both biological explanations (e.g. brain structure, genetics) 328 and psychological explanations (e.g. in terms of cognition, 329 emotion, or intentions). To what extent would shifts in at330 tributions generalize across these types of biological and 331 psychological causation? We tested these questions in 332Experiment 1 by asking participants to make judgments 333about several different types of biological and psychological 334causation for disordered behavior. 335Method 336Participants 337Fifty-one participants were recruited via Amazon Mech338anical Turk (see Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). 339Eight were excluded from analysis (N = 3 due to taking 340similar studies in the past and N = 5 due to random re341sponses on filler items). 342Materials and pretest 343We selected six items, each a hallmark symptom of a 344well-known disorder in the DSM-IV-TR (American 345Psychiatric Association, 2000 Q4).1 For each item, we wrote 346an abstract version approximating the level of description 347in the DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 3482000), and a corresponding concrete version detailing be349haviors exhibited by a specific person (approximating the 350level of description in the DSM-IV-TR Casebook; Spitzer, 351Gibbon, Skodol, Williams, & First, 2002). The two 352versions were roughly equated for length (see Table T11). 353Because we are testing the effect of abstract versus 354concrete framing of the same behavior, we recruited a 355separate group of 40 participants from Amazon Mech356anical Turk to complete a pretest, measuring whether 357the abstract and concrete version of each behavior cor358respond to each other. Each behavior was shown on a 359separate page and the two versions of each behavior, ab360stract and concrete, were presented side by side on the 361page. As an attention check, two filler items not de362signed to be equivalent were also included. Four partici363pants failed this check. Of the remaining 36 pretest 364participants, 15 judged whether the abstract version was 365"a good abstract description" of the concrete version on 366a scale of 1–9 (where 1 = a very poor description; 9 = a 367very good description), while 21 judged whether the 368concrete version was "a good example" of the abstract 369version on a scale of 1–9 (where 1 = a very poor ex370ample; 9 = a very good example). The mean rating for 371the "good abstract description" question was 7.97 (SD = 3720.30); the mean rating for the "good example" question 373was 8.21 (SD = 0.29). Mean ratings by item were all at 374least 7.60. Thus, these pretest results verified that each 375pair of abstract and concrete versions is fairly equivalent. 376For the main experiment, we added abstract and con377crete versions of two filler items (i.e. having an unusually 378large brain size; having a brain tumor) to allow for atten379tion and comprehension checks. If participants paid at380tention to the task, these filler items should receive very 381high ratings on biological questions and very low ratings 382on psychological questions. Five participants who did 383not show this pattern for the two filler items (i.e. giving Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 4 of 17 384 responses at least two standard deviations below the 385 mean on the biological questions [the average of Q1–3 386 below] or two standard deviations above the mean on 387 one of the sets of psychological questions [the average of 388 Q4–6 or Q7–9 below]) were excluded from the final 389 data analyses. 390 For the main experiment, nine questions were devel391 oped to measure people's judgments of the biological 392 and psychological bases of behaviors. Three biological 393 questions were designed to probe beliefs about biological 394 causes of behaviors: 395 Q1. Do you think [their/her/his] brain chemistry is 396 different from that of people who [are not like this/do 397 not do this]? 398 Q2. Do you think [their/her/his] brain structures are 399 different from those of people who [are not like this/do 400 not do this]? 401 Q3. Do you think there is a genetic basis for this? 402 Because naïve biology is likely to be limited, only three 403 questions could be developed (e.g. additional questions re404 garding neuromodulators, etc., would not be meaningful if 405 laypeople did not have a strong intuitive understanding of 406 them). In contrast, because the existing literature suggests 407that naïve psychology encompasses a number of aspects 408of behavior (e.g. Malle & Knobe, 1997; Waytz, Gray, Epley, 409& Wegner, 2010), limiting the possible psychological ques410tions to three to match the number of biological questions 411would unnecessarily restrict the scope of the findings. Six 412questions were therefore gathered to probe beliefs in psy413chological causes of behaviors: 414Q4. Do you think this is caused by cognitive factors 415(e.g. [their/her/his] beliefs, knowledge, intelligence, or 416thinking style)? 417Q5. Do you think this is caused by [their/her/his] 418emotions and desires? 419Q6. Do you think this is caused by [their/her/his] 420[personalities/personality]? 421Q7. Do you think [they are/she is/he is] intentionally 422[like this/doing this]? 423Q8. Do you think [they/she/he] should be [held 424responsible for/given credit for] [being like this/doing this]? 425Q9. Do you think the causes of this are under [their/ 426her/his] control? 427Q4, Q5, and Q6 (Psychological Set 1) were derived 428from tables of contents of Introductory Psychology text429books as factors that are frequently addressed in the t1:1 Table 1 Stimuli for Experiments 1–3 t1:2 Item Text version t1:3 Concrete Abstract t1:4 1. Delusional t1:5 thoughts and t1:6 behaviors Jenny has developed the strong belief that the man living next door is her husband; she sometimes follows him when he is driving and she sends hate mail to his actual wife, though she has never actually met either of them in person. This disorder is characterized by delusional thoughts and behaviors; it involves coming up with strange beliefs that are contrary to fact and that persist strongly, influencing daily behaviors, despite having no evidence to support them. t1:7 2. Manic beliefs t1:8 and behaviors Eric effusively talks about his dozens of highly unrealistic business ideas, which he thinks are guaranteed to make him millions of dollars; he erroneously believes that he is irresistibly attractive to much younger women and is oblivious to their rejections. This disorder is characterized by manic beliefs and behaviors; it involves holding extremely positive selfviews, which are often completely unfounded in reality, and often talking excitedly about all of these beliefs, despite the fact that they are untrue. t1:9 3. Loss of t1:10 pleasure Dan no longer shows interest in most activities, no longer taking pleasure in golfing or long country drives, even though these used to be some of his very favorite weekend activities. This disorder is characterized by loss of pleasure; it involves feeling a substantially diminished interest in most activities, including activities found enjoyable in the past. t1:11 4. Repetitive, t1:12 compulsive t1:13 behaviors Sarah locks each of her windows three times whenever she leaves her house in order to prevent a burglary, she uses a new bar of soap every time she washes her hands, and she runs a virus scan on her computer every hour, even when her computer is disconnected from the Internet. This disorder is characterized by repetitive behaviors; it involves feeling compelled to repeatedly engage in behaviors aimed at preventing some dreaded event, even though these behaviors are not a realistic means for preventing what they are intended to prevent. t1:14 5. Feelings of t1:15 worthlessness/ t1:16 guilt Chris believes that he is incompetent at his job, despite excellent performance evaluations, and blames himself for his company's recent financial losses that were actually caused by uncontrollable circumstances; when a busy co-worker passes by him without engaging in a lengthy conversation, he thinks it is because he is inherently unlikeable. This disorder is characterized by feelings of worthlessness, with unrealistically negative self-evaluations; it involves an exaggerated sense of guilt and personal responsibility for negative occurrences and interpreting neutral, day-to-day events as evidence of personal defects, even though these occurrences are not realistic reflections of poor character. t1:17 6. Recurrent t1:18 nightmares Mike has nightmares almost every night; he often dreams that he is a passenger on an airplane that is out of control and about to crash, or that he has been kidnapped by a serial killer who is planning to torture him. This disorder is characterized by frequent nightmares; it involves having terrifying dreams more nights than not, which often portray threats to physical safety and may involve life-threatening situations. Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 5 of 17 430 study of individual differences. Q7, Q8, and Q9 (Psycho431 logical Set 2) were derived from questions measuring be432 liefs about agency (e.g. Weiner, 1995, 2001). 433 Participants responded to these questions on scales of 434 1–7 (where 1 = not at all; 7 = definitely). For each version 435 of each behavior, the nine questions were presented in 436 randomized order across participants and across items. 437 For each item, participants completed the nine explan438 ation judgments on the same screen, with each item pre439 sented on a separate screen. 440 Procedure and design 441 All experiments were programmed using the online survey 442 software Qualtrics (Qualtrics Labs, Inc., Provo, UT, USA). 443 After reading a general overview of the task, each partici444 pant completed two blocks of items. Each block began with 445 a filler item, followed by the six disorders listed in Table 1, 446 with half of the disorders in the abstract version and half in 447 the concrete version, presented in a random order. The sec448 ond block contained the abstract versions of the concrete 449 items from the first block, and the concrete versions of the 450 abstract items from the first block. That is, participants 451 rated both the abstract and concrete versions of each item, 452 with the two versions in separate halves of the experiment 453 in a counterbalanced order. From the participants' perspec454 tive, there was no obvious marking for filler items or 455 switching between blocks. Upon completing all items, par456 ticipants completed a dualism scale (Stanovich, 1989). 457 To summarize, the experiment incorporated a 2 458 (abstract or concrete) × 2 (psychological attributions 459 or biological attributions) within-subjects design. 460 Results 461 We first computed a biological score for each item by 462 averaging each participant's responses to the three bio463 logical measures (Cronbach's α = 0.97, calculated by item), 464 and a psychological score for each item by averaging each 465 participant's responses to the six psychological measures 466 (α = 0.97). 467 We predicted that biological attributions would be 468 greater for the abstract version than for the concrete ver469 sion and that psychological attributions would be greater 470 for the concrete version than for the abstract version. To 471 test this, we conducted a 2 (concrete or abstract) × 2 (bio472 logical or psychological) repeated measures ANOVA on 473 each participant's mean across items. This analysis revealed 474 the predicted interaction, F(1,42) = 95.68, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 475 0.70, as shown in Fig.F1 1a. Biological attributions were higher 476 for the abstract versions (M = 5.37, SD = 1.23) than for the 477 concrete versions (M = 4.65, SD = 1.16), t(42) = −6.32, p < 478 0.001, d = −0.96, while psychological attributions were 479 higher for the concrete versions (M = 4.80, SD = 0.89) than 480 for the abstract versions (M = 3.70, SD = 0.99), t(38) = 10.85, 481 p < 0.001, d = 1.65. 482Figure 1b shows the 95% confidence intervals of the 483difference scores (concrete minus abstract) for each of 484the nine component measures. Each measure yielded a 485difference score that was significantly negative for all 486three biological measures, indicating a stronger prefer487ence for biological explanations in the abstract, and sig488nificantly positive for all six psychological measures, 489indicating a stronger preference for psychological expla490nations in the concrete. 491The interaction effect also held up in a by-item analysis, 492using each item's mean score across participants. A 2 (ab493stract or concrete) × 2 (biological or psychological) repeated 494measures ANOVA on these scores revealed a significant 495interaction, F(1,5) = 17.32, p = 0.009, ηp 2 = 0.78. Biological at496tributions were higher for the abstract versions (M = 5.37, 497SD = 0.30) than for the concrete versions (M = 4.65, SD = 4980.89), t(5) = −2.58, p = 0.049, d = −1.05, while psychological 499attributions were higher for the concrete versions (M = 5004.80, SD = 0.95) than for the abstract versions (M = 3.70, 501SD = 0.44), t(5) = 5.04, p = 0.004, d = 2.06. f1:1Fig. 1 Results of Experiment 1. a Judgments of the biological and f1:2psychological bases of disordered behaviors rated within-subject; bars f1:3depict Cousineau–Morey standard errors (Cousineau, 2005; Morey, f1:42008). b The 95% confidence intervals of the difference scores f1:5(concrete minus abstract) for ratings on the nine dependent measures. f1:6"Biological Causes" in (a) are the averaged ratings of the first three f1:7dependent measures listed in (b), and "Psychological (Sets 1 & 2) f1:8Causes" are the averaged ratings of the last six dependent measures f1:9listed in (b) Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 6 of 17 502 Discussion 503 Experiment 1 found that biological attributions were 504 higher for abstract than concrete descriptions and psy505 chological attributions were higher for concrete than ab506 stract descriptions for the same behaviors. Remarkably, 507 although neither the abstract nor the concrete version 508 explicitly mentioned anything about the causes of the 509 behaviors, attributions were strongly affected by the 510 framing manipulation. Thus, not only expert clinicians 511 (Kim et al., 2016), but also laypeople, show an effect of 512 framing on their causal attributions for behavior. Further513 more, the effect occurred robustly across all measures we 514 used of psychological and biological attributions, suggest515 ing that it is quite broad. 516 Experiment 2 517 In Experiment 1, each participant made both biological 518 and psychological attributions. This design enabled us to 519 demonstrate shifts within the same individual, but it is 520 possible that participants may have felt experimenter de521 mand to rate the biological and psychological questions 522 in opposing directions. Experiment 2 therefore aimed to 523 replicate the finding using a between-subjects design; 524 that is, by having participants make only biological or 525 only psychological judgments. 526 Method 527 A total of 124 participants were recruited via Amazon 528 Mechanical Turk, of whom nine were excluded (N = 2 529 due to taking similar studies in the past and N = 7 due 530 to random responses on filler items). 531 The stimulus materials were the same as in Experiment 532 1. Unlike in Experiment 1, the nine questions were 533 grouped into three sets: Biological (Q1, Q2, and Q3 as de534 scribed in Experiment 1), Psychological Set 1 (Q4, Q5, 535 and Q6), and Psychological Set 2 (Q7, Q8, and Q9). Each 536 participant received only one of the three groups of ques537 tions (N = 41 for Biological, N = 38 for Psychological Set 1, 538 N = 36 for Psychological Set 2). The six psychological 539 questions were split into two groups to equate the total 540 number of questions received across all participants. Sam541 ple sizes were determined by power analyses on the data 542 from Experiment 1, with 95% power subject to a mini543 mum of 40 participants per condition (prior to excluding 544 random responders and repeat participants). 545 Results and discussion 546 We conducted a 2 × 3 mixed-model ANOVA on each par547 ticipant's mean across items, with framing (concrete or ab548 stract) as a within-subjects factor and attribution type 549 (Biological, Psychological Set 1, or Psychological Set 2) as 550 a between-subjects factor. This analysis revealed the pre551 dicted interaction, F(2,112) = 54.83, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.50, as 552 shown in Fig.F2 2a. Biological attributions were higher for 553the abstract (M = 5.31, SD = 1.20) than for the con554crete versions (M = 4.67, SD = 1.25), t(40) = −7.47, p < 5550.001, d = −1.67. Conversely, psychological attributions 556were higher for the concrete than for the abstract ver557sions, both for Psychological Set 1 (M = 5.08, SD = 1.51 558vs. M = 4.55, SD = 1.96), t(37) = 3.44, p = 0.001, d = 0.56, 559and for Psychological Set 2 (M = 3.83, SD = 1.21 vs. M 560= 2.52, SD = 1.17), t(35) = 8.36, p < 0.001, d = 1.38. As 561shown in Fig. 2b, the difference scores (concrete minus 562abstract) were significant in the predicted direction for 563eight of the nine measures (p < 0.05, two-tailed; cogni564tive factors reached marginal significance in the pre565dicted direction, p < 0.10). 566The interaction effect also held up in a by-item analysis. 567A 2 (abstract or concrete) × 2 (psychological or biological) 568repeated measures ANOVA on the item means revealed a 569significant interaction, F(1,5) = 22.51, p = 0.005, ηp 2 = 0.15. 570Biological attributions were higher for the abstract ver571sions (M = 5.31, SD = 0.26) than for the concrete versions 572(M = 4.67, SD = 0.64), t(5) = −3.04, p = 0.029, d = −1.24, 573while psychological attributions were significantly higher f2:1Fig. 2 Results of Experiment 2. a Judgments of the biological and f2:2psychological bases of disordered behaviors rated between-subject; bars f2:3depict Cousineau–Morey standard errors (Cousineau, 2005; Morey, 2008). f2:4b The 95% confidence intervals of the difference scores (concrete minus f2:5abstract) for ratings on the nine dependent measures. "Biological Causes" f2:6in (a) are the averaged ratings of the first three dependent meaf2:7sures listed in (b), "Psychological Set 1 Causes" the second three, f2:8and "Psychological Set 2 Causes" the last three Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 7 of 17 574 for the concrete versions (M = 4.45, SD = 0.84) than for 575 the abstract versions (M = 3.54, SD = 0.28), t(5) = 3.90, p = 576 0.011, d = 1.59. 577 These results show that the strong shifts in attribution 578 shown in Experiment 1 cannot have occurred due to de579 mand to inversely rate biological and psychological causes. 580 Rather, these shifts occur independently, reflecting both a 581 stronger belief in biological causation in the abstract and a 582 stronger belief in psychological causation in the concrete. 583 Experiment 3 584 In Experiment 3, we tested whether the effect of abstract 585 versus concrete framing on biological versus psycho586 logical attributions might have a downstream effect on 587 the perceived efficacy of treatments for mental disorders. 588 Such a finding would have implications both for psychi589 atric intervention and for public health, since perceived 590 treatment efficacy can influence actual treatment efficacy 591 (Meyer et al., 2002). 592 People believe that medication is more effective for 593 disorders that they perceive to be biologically based and 594 that psychotherapy is more effective for those they per595 ceive as psychologically based (e.g. Iselin & Addis, 2003; 596 Luk & Bond, 1992; Yopchick & Kim, 2009). We there597 fore predicted that medication would be seen as more 598 effective in treating symptoms described abstractly ra599 ther than concretely, since abstract descriptions were 600 more compatible with biological explanations (Experi601 ments 1 and 2). Put differently, making an effect (e.g. a 602 mental disorder) appear to be more biologically caused 603 (e.g. by neurotransmitter imbalances) should make bio604 logical interventions on that causal system (e.g. medica605 tion) appear more effective. In contrast, since concrete 606 framing makes psychological explanations more avail607 able, psychological interventions (e.g. psychotherapy) 608 should appear more effective with concrete rather than 609 abstract framing. 610 Method 611 We recruited 40 participants from Amazon Mechanical 612 Turk. Participants made judgments about the abstract and 613 concrete versions of the same items used in Experiments 614 1 and 2. However, rather than judging explanations, they 615 rated the extent to which they believed psychotherapy 616 would be an effective treatment and the extent to which 617 they believed medication would be an effective treatment, 618 on separate scales from 1 ("not at all") to 9 ("completely"). 619 Participants were told that psychotherapy refers to "treat620 ment by psychological means, involving repeated verbal 621 interactions between a clinician and a client," and that 622 medication refers to "treatment by psychiatric, psy623 choactive, or psychotropic drugs." These judgments were 624 always made on the same page and their order was coun625 terbalanced so that some participants always made 626medication judgments first and other participants always 627made psychotherapy judgments first. The abstract versus 628concrete framing was a within-subject factor with the 629order of the items counterbalanced as in Experiment 1, so 630that the abstract and concrete versions of the same item 631would appear in separate halves of the experiment. 632Results and discussion 633We conducted a 2 (concrete or abstract) × 2 (medication 634or psychotherapy) repeated-measures ANOVA on indi635vidual participants' means across items. This analysis re636vealed the predicted interaction, F(1,39) = 9.61, p = 0.004, 637ηp 2 = 0.20, as shown in Fig. F33. Medication was judged 638more effective when the disorder was framed abstractly 639(M = 5.71; SD = 1.64) rather than concretely (M = 5.22; 640SD = 1.60), t(39) = 3.70; p = 0.001; d = 0.58. However, 641judgments of the effectiveness of psychotherapy did not 642reliably differ between the abstract (M = 6.57; SD = 1.18) 643and concrete versions (M = 6.66; SD = 1.13), t(39) = 0.79, 644p = 0.43, d = 0.13. 645When behaviors are described more abstractly, and 646biological explanations thereby seem more plausible 647(as shown in Experiments 1 and 2), the current results 648suggest that people come to believe that biological inter649ventions on that causal system are more likely to influence 650those behaviors. These results generalize the effect of ab651stract and concrete framing on biological attributions to a 652new measure. That said, it is difficult to say whether or 653not the effect on treatment decisions is statistically medi654ated by attributions, since the effect was found for medi655cation but not for psychotherapy. A test for mediation 656would require a design that measured both attributions 657and treatments simultaneously. 658Why did the effect not extend to psychotherapy effi659cacy judgments? Although it is possible that this oc660curred because the effect of abstract/concrete framing 661on psychological explanations is less stable than the ef662fect on biological explanations, we think this is not the f3:1Fig. 3 Mean judgments of medication and psychotherapy treatment f3:2efficacy in Experiment 3. Bars depict Cousineau–Morey standard f3:3errors (Cousineau, 2005; Morey, 2008) Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 8 of 17 663 most likely explanation. The abstractness manipulation 664 was sufficient to find robust differences for both psycho665 logical and biological explanations in Experiments 1 and 666 2 and this same manipulation was used here in Experi667 ment 3. Instead, the null effect on psychotherapy judg668 ments is likely the result of a ceiling effect: Participants' 669 judgments for the psychotherapy items were between 6.5 670 and 7 on a nine-point scale, which may be at ceiling 671 given people's moderate perceptions of the degree to 672 which psychotherapy has the potential to be effective 673 (Jorm, 2012; Ten Have et al., 2010). In contrast, people 674 know much less about psychotropic medications (Jorm, 675 2012); thus, for medication judgments they may rely 676 more on their perceptions of the biological basis of the 677 items, as shifted by the framing effect demonstrated in 678 Experiment 3. 679 Experiment 4 680 Experiments 1–3 showed that biological and psycho681 logical attributions shift depending on abstract versus 682 concrete framing not only for clinicians (as shown in 683 Kim et al., 2016), but for laypeople as well, and across a 684 wide range of specific psychological and biological 685 causes. However, these experiments leave unanswered 686 the question of whether these attribution shifts would 687 also occur across a wider range of human behaviors. 688 Mental disorders may be something of a special case, be689 cause both clinicians and laypeople are accustomed to 690 hearing both psychological and biological levels of ex691 planation for disordered behaviors. Experiments 4 and 5 692 tested whether such shifts would also occur for behav693 iors which are more closely within the range of familiar 694 human experience, but which are somewhat out of the 695 ordinary and hence seem in need of an explanation. 696 Method 697 Participants 698 Forty-nine lay participants were recruited via Amazon 699 Mechanical Turk, of whom ten were excluded (N = 2 700 due to taking similar studies in the past and N = 8 due 701 to random responses on filler items). 702 Materials and pretest 703 We picked eight everyday behaviors, including both 704 positively and negatively valenced behaviors. All of these 705 behaviors were realistic and required some explanation 706 (e.g. having difficulty focusing on tasks for a long time; 707 staying calm during a competitive situation; see TableT2 2 708 for a list of all stimuli). To show that the effect arises 709 when people are thinking about everyday behaviors, 710 we avoided highly rare behaviors, such as behaviors 711 that were extremely positive (e.g. memorizing 100-digit 712 matrices on a single viewing) or extremely negative (e.g. 713 committing serial murder). In addition, to circumvent 714ceiling or floor effects, we avoided using behaviors for the 715main test items that would likely be perceived as very 716strongly biologically caused (e.g. breathing). 717For each behavior, we developed an abstract version by 718describing the behavior as being common to a group of 719people. Each abstract version started with "Some people..." 720and described the behavior as generally applied to them 721without presenting any idiosyncratic variations. For the cor722responding concrete version, we specified a person with a 723first name and instantiated the behaviors in the context of 724that particular person using concrete terms. The two ver725sions were roughly equated for length (see Table 1). 726As for Experiment 1, we conducted a pretest of these 727items to determine whether the abstract and concrete 728versions of each behavior were perceived to correspond 729to each other as intended. We recruited a separate group 730of 41 participants for this pretest, of whom five were ex731cluded for failing the attention check. Of the remaining 73236 pretest participants, 18 judged whether the abstract 733version was "a good abstract description" of the concrete 734version on a scale of 1–9 (where 1 = a very poor descrip735tion; 9 = a very good description), yielding a mean rating 736of 7.61 (SD = 0.26). A separate group of 18 participants 737judged whether the concrete version was "a good ex738ample" of the abstract version on a scale of 1–9 (where 7391 = a very poor example; 9 = a very good example), yield740ing a mean rating of 7.99 (SD = 0.23). Mean ratings by 741behavior were all at least 7.33. 742Procedure 743The main experiment used the same measures as Exper744iments 1 and 2. The procedure was the same as Experi745ment 1, except that each participant made judgments for 746only half of the items in Table 2, in order to keep the 747length of the experiment reasonable. As in Experiment 7481, the items were counterbalanced so that the abstract 749and concrete versions of the same item appeared in sep750arate halves of the experiment. 751Results 752Each participant's biological (α = 0.95, calculated by item) 753and psychological (α = 0.85) attributions were averaged 754separately. We conducted a 2 (concrete or abstract) × 2 755(biological or psychological) repeated measures ANOVA 756on each participant's mean across items. This analysis re757vealed the predicted interaction, F(1,38) = 33.95, p < 0.001, 758ηp 2 = 0.47, as shown in Fig. F44a. Biological attributions 759were higher for the abstract versions (M = 4.81, SD = 7601.22) than for the concrete versions (M = 4.42, SD = 7611.12), t(38) = −4.36, p < 0.001, d = −0.70, while psy762chological attributions were higher for the concrete ver763sions (M = 6.04, SD = 0.84) than for the abstract versions 764(M = 5.65, SD = 0.93), t(38) = 4.84, p < 0.001, d = 0.78. Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 9 of 17 765 As shown in Fig. 4b, the effects for each component 766 measure were directionally consistent with our predictions 767 and with previous experiments, but were somewhat more 768 variable. Although six of the nine measures reached signifi769 cance at the p < 0.05 level (two-tailed t-test against 0), one 770 biological factor reached marginal significance (brain struc771 ture; p < 0.10), and two psychological factors did not signifi772 cantly differ from 0 (cognitive factors and personality; see 773 below for discussion). 774 The interaction effect also held up in a by-item ana775 lysis, using each item's mean score across participants. 776 A 2 (abstract or concrete) × 2 (biological or psycho777 logical) repeated measures ANOVA on these scores re778 vealed the predicted interaction, F(1,7) = 16.62, p = 779 0.005, ηp 2 = 0.70. Biological attributions were higher for 780 the abstract versions (M = 4.81, SD = 0.83) than for the 781 concrete versions (M = 4.42, SD = 0.83), t(7) = −4.27, p 782 = 0.004, d = −1.51, while psychological attributions were 783 higher for the concrete versions (M = 6.04, SD = 0.58) 784 than for the abstract versions (M = 5.65, SD = 0.90), t(7) 785 = 2.65, p = 0.033, d = 0.94. 786Discussion 787Experiment 4 found that shifts in attribution occur not 788only for mental disorders, but for a much broader range 789of human behaviors. These shifts were consistent across 790the three biological measures (albeit marginally signifi791cantly for brain structures), but somewhat more variable 792across the psychological measures. Although four of our 793psychological measures shifted significantly in the pre794dicted direction, two others-cognitive factors and per795sonality-did not. 796Since all psychological measures shifted significantly in 797Experiments 1 and 2 depending on framing, it is worth 798considering why shifts were not seen for cognitive fac799tors and personality in Experiment 4. We speculate that 800these somewhat less consistent effects of psychological 801attributions may be due in part to a weaker manipula802tion of abstractness that we used in Experiment 4, com803pared to Experiments 1–3. Whereas those previous 804experiments described the behaviors at the level of a cat805egory (a mental disorder) that did not invoke any indi806viduals, Experiment 4 described the behaviors in terms t2:1 Table 2 Stimuli for Experiments 4 and 5 t2:2 Behavior Text version t2:3 Concrete Abstract t2:4 1. Having extrat2:5 marital affairs Douglas has been regularly sleeping with his ex-girlfriend at a local hotel; he has created an elaborate lie to tell his wife, claiming that he has to spend evenings and weekends away from the house doing extra work for his unreasonable boss. Some men have extra-marital affairs; they have an ongoing sexual relationship with someone other than their spouse, typically without their spouse's knowledge, and they frequently engage in deceptive behaviors to cover up these actions. t2:6 2. Having a great t2:7 memory for names Denise memorized the names of all of the students in her 85person lecture course within the first couple of class meetings and she spent only a little extra time outside of class reviewing their names and photographs. Some people have a great memory for names; they can learn to match a large number of names to faces under conditions of limited time, all without seeming to undergo an extraordinary amount of mental effort. t2:8 3. Being nervous in t2:9 social settings Cheryl gets nervous at all of the company dinners and parties she is expected to attend with her colleagues; she worries about whether she sounds intelligent and whether her dress, hair, and makeup look right. Some people are nervous in social settings; when they are placed in any situation in which they are expected to mingle with other people, including people they already know, they get worried and anxious. t2:10 4. Staying calm t2:11 during a competitive t2:12 situation Allen stays calm during his figure skating performance in international competition; he lands all of his difficult jumps perfectly while under tremendous pressure to do well on behalf of his country. Some people stay calm during a competitive situation; they are able to perform well despite being under a considerable amount of pressure to live up to the expectations of others and themselves. t2:13 5. Having difficulty t2:14 focusing on tasks for t2:15 a long time Raymond has difficulty focusing on writing the sales presentations required by his job; he repeatedly stops working to chat with co-workers, shop online, and watch viral YouTube videos. Some people have difficulty focusing on tasks for a long time; their attention wanders and they engage in alternative activities that do not advance their work on the task at hand. t2:16 6. Drinking too much Martin frequently drinks too many tequila shots; he knows that his system can really only handle one per hour, but always drinks at least three times that amount, vomits, and then has terrible hangovers the next day. Some people drink too much; they knowingly ingest more alcohol than their digestive systems can adequately process in a short span of time, and do so more frequently than is advisable for maximum wellbeing. t2:17 7. Tending to be t2:18 optimistic about the t2:19 future Sharon tends to be optimistic about her career trajectory; she anticipates that her own performance will be excellent and expects to get good job assignments and eventual promotions. Some people tend to be optimistic about the future; they approach the world with positive expectations about what events will happen in the future and how those events will unfold. t2:20 8. Being very driven t2:21 to achieve Thomas is very intent on becoming a top executive at his corporation; he works 18-h days and has never missed a work meeting, although he has missed many of his children's sports games and recitals. Some people tend to be very driven to achieve; this involves putting the vast majority of their time, effort, and mental focus on achieving their goals and paying relatively less attention to other areas of life. Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 10 of 17 807 of a group of individuals engaging in the behavior. Because 808 even the abstract versions referred to human agents, they 809 might have somewhat triggered psychological explana810 tions. Furthermore, people may consider cognitive factors 811 (e.g. beliefs and intelligence) and personality to be more 812 immutable than the other, more transient psychological 813 factors we tested, such as emotions and intentions. None814 theless, significant shifts were still obtained for a majority 815 of our measures of psychological attribution-and all mea816 sures of biological attribution (at least marginally signifi817 cantly)-testifying to the robustness of the attributional 818 shifts in the face of this weaker manipulation. 819 Experiment 5 820 Experiment 5 sought to replicate the framing effects on 821 attributions for ordinary behaviors, using a between822 subjects design as in Experiment 2. 823 Method 824 Two hundred and forty participants were recruited via 825 Amazon Mechanical Turk, of whom 21 were excluded 826(N = 9 due to taking similar studies in the past and N = 82712 due to random responses on filler items). Thus, data 828from 219 participants were used for the analyses. 829The stimulus materials were the same as in Experi830ment 4. The design and the procedure were the same as 831in Experiment 2 in that participants received either the 832Biological (N = 36), the Psychological Set 1 (N = 145), or 833the Psychological Set 2 (N = 38) questions. Sample sizes 834were determined by power analyses on the data from Ex835periment 4, with 95% power subject to a minimum of 40 836participants per condition (prior to excluding random 837responders and repeat participants). 838Results and discussion 839We conducted a 2 × 3 mixed-model ANOVA on each 840participant's mean across items, with framing (concrete 841or abstract) as a within-subjects factor and attribution 842(Biological, Psychological Set 1, or Psychological Set 2) 843as a between-subjects factor. This analysis revealed the 844predicted interaction, F(1,228) = 51.15, p < 0.001, ηp 2 = 8450.31, as shown in Fig. F55a. Biological attributions were 846higher for the abstract (M = 5.29, SD = 1.11) than for the 847concrete versions (M = 4.57, SD = 1.34), t(35) = −6.81, p < 8480.001, d = −1.13, whereas the responses to the Psycho849logical Set 2 questions were higher for the concrete (M = 8506.71, SD = 0.74) than for the abstract versions (M = 6.24, 851SD = 0.95), t(37) = 5.16, p < 0.001, d = 0.84. The responses 852to the Psychological Set 1 questions did not differ between 853the concrete and abstract versions (M = 6.27, SD = 0.85 vs. 854M = 6.22, SD = 0.85), t(144) = 1.18, p = 0.24, d = 0.10, 855because cognitive abilities and personality-the two 856psychological measures that did not reach significance in 857Experiment 1-were unaffected by the manipulation. (See 858Fig. 5b for the 95% confidence intervals of the difference 859scores for each measure.) Again, we suspect that these less 860consistent effects on psychological attributions may be at861tributable to the weaker manipulation of abstractness used 862in Experiments 4 and 5, compared to Experiments 1–3, 863perhaps in conjunction with a tendency to view cognitive 864and personality factors as more immutable than the other 865psychological factors. Importantly, however, the effects on 866psychological attributions were significant overall and 867consistent for four of the six measures. 868The interaction effect also held up in a by-item ana869lysis. A 2 (abstract or concrete) × 2 (biological or psycho870logical) repeated measures ANOVA on the item means 871revealed a significant interaction, F(1,7) = 38.80, p < 8720.001, ηp 2 = 0.85. Biological attributions were higher for 873the abstract versions (M = 5.26, SD = 0.69) than for the 874concrete versions (M = 4.54, SD = 0.87), t(7) = −5.33, p = 8750.001, d = −1.88, while psychological attributions were 876marginally higher for the concrete versions (M = 6.50, 877SD = 0.45) than for the abstract versions (M = 6.25, SD = 8780.71), t(7) = 2.15, p = 0.069, d = 0.76. Follow-up analyses f4:1 Fig. 4 Results of Experiment 4. a Judgments of the biological and f4:2 psychological bases of everyday behaviors rated within-subject; bars f4:3 depict Cousineau–Morey standard errors (Cousineau, 2005; Morey, f4:4 2008). b The 95% confidence intervals of the difference scores f4:5 (concrete minus abstract) for ratings on the nine dependent meaf4:6 sures. "Biological Causes" in (a) are the averaged ratings of the first three f4:7 dependent measures listed in (b), and "Psychological (Sets 1 & 2) Causes" f4:8 are the averaged ratings of the last six dependent measures listed in (b) Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 11 of 17 879 conducted separately on the two sets of psychological 880 measures showed that this marginally significant effect on 881 psychological attributions occurred because concrete 882 items were rated significantly higher than abstract items 883 on the Psychological Set 2 measures (M = 6.74, SD = 0.91 884 vs. M = 6.28, SD = 1.15), t(7) = 2.49, p = 0.041, d = 0.88, 885 while the concrete and abstract items were rated similarly 886 on the Psychological Set 1 measures (M = 6.27, SD = 0.33 887 vs. M = 6.22, SD = 0.45), t(7) = 0.59, p = 0.57, d = 0.21. 888 In sum, the results of Experiment 5 fully replicate the 889 findings of Experiment 4, where biological attributions 890 were consistently stronger in the abstract and psycho891 logical attributions were typically stronger in the con892 crete (with two of six measures failing to reach 893 significance). Finding these same effects in a between894 subjects design shows that the framing shifts cannot be 895 due to a perceived demand to rate the psychological and 896 biological explanations inversely. 897 General discussion 898 In daily life, people often describe behaviors at differing 899 levels of abstraction-as abstract generalizations across 900 individuals or as concrete behaviors of individuals. We 901 hypothesized that this distinction between abstract and 902 concrete framing would lead to different explanatory 903preferences; namely, a stronger preference for biological 904explanations in the abstract and more reluctance to 905accept biological explanations for concrete cases. 906The results across Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 5 corrobo907rated this hypothesis. Both in contemplating disordered 908(Experiments 1 and 2) and everyday behaviors (Experi909ments 4 and 5), participants generally judged explana910tions in terms of genetics, neural chemistry, and brain 911structure to be more appropriate when faced with ab912stract descriptions of behavior than when faced with 913concrete cases. These differing explanatory stances also 914had downstream consequences such that people pre915ferred a more "biological" intervention (medication) for 916treating disorders when described abstractly than when 917described in terms of a concrete case (Experiment 3). 918It should also be noted that our claims are only about 919whether endorsement of biological and psychological ex920planations was influenced by abstract descriptions rela921tive to concrete descriptions. Thus, we are not claiming 922that abstract framing would increase endorsement of 923biological explanations to the extent that they would be 924preferred to psychological explanations. In fact, this was 925not the case in Experiments 3–5. Similarly, we are not 926claiming that concrete framing would make psycho927logical explanations be endorsed more than biological 928explanations; again, the current results failed to show 929that consistently (Experiments 1 and 2). Preferences for 930biological versus psychological explanations can vary 931greatly simply due to the nature of the events. For in932stance, "Don is full of himself" would be difficult to ex933plain in terms of biological factors and thus although an 934abstract framing like "Some people are full of them935selves" may make biological accounts more plausible, 936psychological accounts may still be more dominant than 937biological accounts even in the abstract framing. 938In addition, we acknowledge that other factors may in939fluence the availability of biological versus psychological 940explanations, including individual differences in theory 941of mind (Baron-Cohen, 1997), cognitive reflectiveness 942(Frederick, 2005), or even a desire to blame others for 943their behavior (Clark et al., 2014). We do not mean to 944downplay the importance of other potential factors, but 945rather seek to argue that the abstract/concrete distinc946tion plays a key role. 947Possible mechanisms 948In the introduction, we briefly presented two explanations 949for this framing effect. First, abstract framing, which con950veys general patterns, triggers the need for more immut951able explanations (e.g. Cimpian & Salomon, 2014), and 952biological properties are judged to be immutable and 953timeless (e.g. Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011; Lebowitz et al., 9542013) just like generic abstract framing. Second, previous 955studies found that people more strongly attribute f5:1 Fig. 5 Results of Experiment 5. a Judgments of the biological and f5:2 psychological bases of everyday behaviors rated between-subjects; f5:3 bars depict Cousineau–Morey standard errors (Cousineau, 2005; f5:4 Morey, 2008). b The 95% confidence intervals of the difference f5:5 scores (concrete minus abstract) for ratings on the nine dependent f5:6 measures. "Biological Causes" in (a) are the averaged ratings of the first f5:7 three dependent measures listed in (b), "Psychological Set 1 Causes" f5:8 the second three, and "Psychological Set 2 Causes" the last three Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 12 of 17 956 behaviors to free will when the events are described in 957 more concrete contexts (e.g. Nichols & Knobe, 2007). We 958 acknowledge that there are also other possible mecha959 nisms for this framing effect and we briefly discuss three 960 here: an inverse relationship between psychological and 961 biological judgments, dualist thinking, and the influence 962 of formal education. 963 Inverse relationship between psychological and biological 964 judgments 965 People have been shown to behave as though biological 966 and psychological explanations have an inverse relation967 ship. That is, people sometimes behave as though factors 968 making one kind of explanation more plausible corres969 pondingly make the other kind less plausible (e.g. Preston, 970 Ritter, & Hepler, 2013; see also Ahn, Proctor, & Flanagan, 971 2009 for similar findings with clinicians). Thus, salient 972 psychological explanations for concrete cases may add973 itionally suppress biological explanations and salient bio974 logical explanations for abstract cases may also 975 additionally suppress psychological explanations. In that 976 sense, this belief in an inverse relationship is not by itself 977 an explanation for our effects because there should be an 978 initial mechanism for making biological explanations sali979 ent for abstract cases or psychological explanations salient 980 for concrete cases. Yet, once biological explanations be981 come salient for abstract framing (due to, for instance, 982 biological explanations being compatible with generic ab983 stract framing), it may make psychological explanations 984 less salient for abstract framing. 985 Dualist thinking 986 Recent work has explored the possibility that people are 987 intuitive mind–body dualists, who believe that the mind 988 and brain are separate entities (e.g. Bloom, 2007; For989 stmann, Burgmer, & Mussweiler, 2012; Hood, Gjersoe, & 990 Bloom, 2012; Hook & Farah, 2013). Whereas philoso991 phers of mind hold that biology and psychology repre992 sent separable levels of analysis, such explanations are 993 usually seen as complementary (e.g. Dennett, 1971). Lay994 people may instead see these explanations as competing 995 (e.g. Preston et al., 2013)-a form of dualism that is not 996 inconsistent with the current findings. 997 The current results could also help to explain previous 998 framing effects in judgments of free will. Nichols and 999 Knobe (2007) found that people often endorse determin1000 ism in the abstract, but are more inclined toward belief in 1001 free will for individuals (Nichols & Knobe, 2007). Our re1002 sults suggest one possible explanation for this result-that 1003 people are dualists in the sense that they do not juxtapose 1004 biological and psychological explanations, but rather treat 1005 them as competing explanations, privileging one over the 1006 other depending on the context. Our findings suggest that 1007 people may be subtly drawn to physicalism, the claim that 1008everything is physical or is necessitated by the physical, 1009more strongly in the abstract than in the concrete. 1010That said, our results do not present any direct dem1011onstrations of Cartesian dualism, the claim that mind 1012and body are distinct substances. We collected partici1013pants' dualists beliefs at the end of Experiments 1 and 4, 1014presenting them with the dualism scale from Stanovich 1015(1989), and found that the framing effects did not correl1016ate with people's dualist beliefs. In this scale, participants 1017judged their agreement with 27 statements (e.g. "the 1018mind and the brain are two totally separate things;" "in a 1019hundred years or more, it might make sense to refer to a 1020computer as having a mind") on a 5-point scale. For 1021each participant, we computed the correlation between 1022their scores on this dualism scale and the extent to 1023which they showed the framing effect. As an index of 1024framing effects, we added each participant's difference 1025score (i.e. concrete minus abstract) for psychological at1026tributions to the opposite sign difference score (i.e. ab1027stract minus concrete) for biological attributions. This 1028provides an estimate of the interactive effect of concrete1029ness/abstractness on psychological and biological attri1030butions for each participant. The average correlation 1031between the dualism scale and the framing effect was 1032significantly negative in Experiment 1, r(41) = −0.38, p = 10330.013, and failed to reach significance in Experiment 3, 1034r(37) = 0.34, p = 0.16. Taken together, these findings speak 1035against the possibility that those who are more likely to 1036endorse mind–body dualism are more likely to be subject 1037to the abstract/concrete framing effect. Nonetheless, these 1038null results should be taken with caution, in part because 1039the dualism scale may have become a less valid measure 1040of dualist beliefs in recent years. That is, the pervasiveness 1041of biological accounts of human behaviors may have made 1042laypeople deny mind–body dualism when confronted ex1043plicitly, as is the case in the dualism scale. Future research, 1044using more implicit measures of dualism, can help us bet1045ter understand the shape and the scope of dualist beliefs 1046that laypeople hold. 1047Context-sensitivity of intuitive and formal theories 1048People hold lay theories across many domains that differ 1049dramatically from more formal scientific theories, in1050cluding theories in biology (Shtulman, 2006), physics 1051(McCloskey, 1983), statistics (Tversky & Kahneman, 10521971), economics (Furnham & Argyle, 1998), personality 1053(Haslam et al., 2004), decision theory (Johnson & Rips, 10542015), and emotion (Gilbert & Wilson, 2007). Further, 1055these lay theories often coexist in an individual's mind 1056with their formal counterparts (Shtulman & Valcarcel, 10572012). Adults who have had many years of formal educa1058tion and who would have no difficulty endorsing the ap1059propriate scientific theory if asked explicitly nonetheless 1060show slower response times in verifying facts that have Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 13 of 17 1061 different truth values on their formal and intuitive theor1062 ies (e.g. "fire is composed of matter" or "air is composed 1063 of matter"), compared to facts that have the same truth 1064 values on both theories (e.g. "rocks are composed of 1065 matter" or "numbers are composed of matter"). Indeed, 1066 under time pressure, expert biologists fall back on their 1067 intuitive theories of biology, according to which plants 1068 are non-living (Goldberg & Thompson-Schill, 2009) and 1069 expert physical scientists endorse teleological explana1070 tions for physical phenomena (e.g. "Trees produce oxy1071 gen so that animals can breathe"; Kelemen, Rottman, & 1072 Seston, 2013). 1073 Very little is known, however, about what circumstances 1074 lead individuals to apply their formal versus intuitive the1075 ories to a problem when these theories disagree. We 1076 speculate that people may be more likely to rely on their 1077 formal theories in the abstract and more likely to default 1078 to their earlier, intuitive theories in the concrete. This idea 1079 can provide a further mechanism for the current findings. 1080 Whereas folk psychology is a natural and early-emerging 1081 mode of explanation (e.g.Q5 Gergely & Csibra, 2003; Onishi 1082 & Baillargeon, 2005), brain-based biological explanations 1083 seem to emerge later (Johnson & Wellman, 1982). Further, 1084 people usually learn about biological explanations in an 1085 abstract format. For example, science-based websites for 1086 the public that explain the biological underpinnings of be1087 havioral disorders (e.g. from such authoritative bodies as 1088 the CDC, NIH, and Mayo Clinic) invariably describe what 1089 is known about each disorder in general, rather than de1090 scribing individual case studies. Student textbooks 1091 explaining the biology of behaviors and commercials mar1092 keting psychotropic medications often take the same ap1093 proach. Consequently, formally acquired biological 1094 explanations for behavior may seem relatively natural in 1095 the abstract, but people may default to their lay theories 1096 such as folk psychology in the concrete, accounting for 1097 our framing effect. 1098 One way to test the formal education hypothesis 1099 would be to ask whether an analogous effect arises in 1100 other domains. Would people apply different lay eco1101 nomic theories in contemplating one individual country 1102 versus countries in general? Would people apply differ1103 ent lay theories of evolution in contemplating one par1104 ticular species versus species in general? Would people 1105 give different advice about how to maximize happiness if 1106 the advice is applied to a particular person versus people 1107 in general? To the extent that formal and intuitive theor1108 ies may give different verdicts, these questions may be of 1109 considerable practical importance. 1110 A second way to test the hypothesis would be to con1111 duct developmental studies. Presumably, young children 1112 do not have a formal education in biology or neurosci1113 ence, so if the effect is indeed driven by formal educa1114 tion, it should not arise among young children. By 1115contrast, if the effect is driven by an intuition that bio1116logical explanations are tied to immutability and hence 1117essentialism, it might arise much earlier in develop1118ment. For instance, Cimpian and Markman (2011) 1119found that when asked to explain either generic state1120ments (e.g. boys are good at math) or non-generic 1121statements (e.g. Johnny is good at math), even four1122year-olds preferred to explain generic statements in terms 1123of inherent features (e.g. "because that's how they're 1124made") than extrinsic features (e.g. "because they got tea1125ched"). This effect of genericity on intuitions about inher1126ence does not seem to require formal education, and if 1127our framing effects are driven by the same process, they 1128might be similarly early-emerging. On the other hand, our 1129results are more nuanced in that people distinguished be1130tween biological explanations and psychological explana1131tions, when both (or at least some of the psychological 1132explanations used in the current study) are treated as in1133herent and essentialized explanations in the previous de1134velopmental studies. This finer distinction may emerge 1135later in development as a result of learning biological the1136ories in the abstract context. 1137Implications for Public Health and Science Education 1138We found that, like clinicians (Kim et al., 2016), laypeople 1139endorse different explanations for mental disorders in the 1140abstract and in the concrete (Experiments 1 and 2), which 1141can even lead to different treatment recommendations 1142(Experiment 3). These results have implications for public 1143communication about mental disorders. Biological expla1144nations of psychopathology lead people to essentialize 1145mental disorders (e.g. Dar-Nimrod & Heine, 2011; Haslam 1146& Ernst, 2002), to distance themselves from or reduce em1147pathy toward people who have mental disorders (Lebowitz 1148& Ahn, 2014; Read, Haslam, Sayce, & Davies, 2006), and 1149to be more pessimistic about mental disorder prognoses 1150(Deacon & Baird, 2009; Kvaale, Haslam, & Gottdiener, 11512013). At the same time, however, these explanations can 1152ameliorate stigma by reducing personal blame for mental 1153disorder symptoms (e.g. Deacon & Baird, 2009). These 1154studies, along with the current results, suggest that, de1155pending on the goal of communication, it may be best to 1156use either abstract or concrete descriptions. One should 1157use concrete descriptions if one wishes to de-essentialize 1158mental illness or improve perceived prognosis and ab1159stract descriptions if one wishes to reduce blame for the 1160symptoms. 1161Our finding also has implications for science education 1162more broadly. Science educators have long debated the 1163relative value of abstract and concrete teaching materials 1164(see Fyfe, McNeil, Son, & Goldstone, 2014 for a review). 1165Concrete materials have both advantages (e.g. they may be 1166more likely to utilize real-world knowledge; Schliemann & 1167Carraher, 2002) and disadvantages (e.g. they can also Kim et al. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications _#####################_ Page 14 of 17 1168 distract with extraneous perceptual details; Belenky & 1169 Schalk, 2014); yet abstract materials, too, have their own 1170 benefits (e.g. they emphasize structural features over 1171 superficial features; Uttal, O'Doherty, Newland, Hand, & 1172 DeLoache, 2009) and pitfalls (e.g. mindless symbol ma1173 nipulation; Nathan, 2012). It is often noted that because of 1174 these complementary advantages and disadvantages, the 1175 use of both kinds of materials is necessary. However, our 1176 results suggest another critical difference between these 1177 types of materials-whereas the use of biological explana1178 tions (acquired through science education) may be rela1179 tively natural in an abstract setting, students may fall back 1180 on their psychological explanations in concrete settings. 1181 This highlights the need, not only to expose students to 1182 both kinds of teaching materials, but to map the connec1183 tions between concrete problems and their abstract logical 1184 structure, if educators hope for the biological explanations 1185 they are teaching to their students to be generalized to the 1186 concrete world. 1187 Conclusion 1188 We explain human behaviors in multiple ways. We can 1189 emphasize the importance of responsibility, controllability, 1190 intentions, beliefs, and desires. We can also explain human 1191 behavior in terms of biological forces, such as genes, neural 1192 chemistry, and brain structure. Our results showed that 1193 biological theories of behavior are more privileged when 1194 contemplating abstract descriptions rather than concrete 1195 cases. Thus, even though abstract and concrete descriptions 1196 of behavior are both ubiquitous in the world, and often 1197 seemingly equivalent, they can nonetheless lead to very dif1198 ferent inferences about the causes underlying the behavior. 1199 Endnotes 1200 1Although the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Associ1201 ation, 2013) is the most recent version of the manual, 1202 DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) 1203 was the only version available at the time we developed 1204 these materials. Nevertheless, any statements made in 1205 this paper in reference to the DSM-IV-TR are also valid 1206 in terms of the DSM-5, as the particular symptoms we 1207 used remain in the DSM-5. 1208 Funding 1209 This work was supported by NIH Grants R01MH57737 and R01HG007653 to 1210 Woo-kyoung Ahn. 1211 Competing interests 1212 The authors declare that they have no competing interests. 1213 Authors' contributions 1214 W.A. and J.K. originated the project idea. N.S.K., S.G.B.J., and W.A. wrote the 1215 stimulus materials, which were critically revised by J.K. Programming and 1216 data collection were performed by S.G.B.J. and W.A.; S.G.B.J., W.A., and N.S.K. 1217 performed data analyses. N.S.K. wrote the initial manuscript draft; S.G.B.J., 1218 W.A., and J.K. made critical additions and revisions. All authors contributed to 1219 data interpretation and additional revisions of the manuscript. All authors 1220 approved the manuscript for submission. 1221 Q6Ethics approval and consent to participate 1222Experiments 1–5 were conducted with the formal approval of the Yale 1223University and Northeastern University Institutional Review Boards. All 1224participants voluntarily gave informed consent. 1225Author details 12261Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, 125 Nightingale Hall, 1227360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. 2Department of 1228Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA. 12293Department of Philosophy, Yale University, 344 College Street, New Haven, 1230CT 06511, USA. 1231Received: 14 September 2016 Accepted: 3 February 2017 1232 1233References 1234Ahn, W., Proctor, C. C., & Flanagan, E. H. (2009). Mental health clinicians' beliefs 1235about the biological, psychological, and environmental bases of mental 1236disorders. Cognitive Science, 33, 147–182. 1237American Psychiatric Association. (2013). 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