Two Minds Blog

My first iteration of Two Minds Theory was called “Temporal Immediacy Theory,” emphasizing one key difference between the Narrative and the Intuitive minds. Immediacy is the idea that the Narrative mind is concerned with stories about the past or the future, while the Intuitive mind focuses on one's experience in the present moment. Other differences between the two mental systems sometimes seem more salient: For instance, the Intuitive mind’s connection to the limbic system often makes it the more “emotional” of the two minds, while the Narrative mind seems rational and detached. Alternately, the Narrative mind has a limited ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time, while the Intuitive mind is a constant and successful multitasker . And the Intuitive mode takes less time and effort than the Narrative mode, leading to Kahneman’s characterization of the two minds as “ Thinking, Fast and Slow .” However, it’s my contention that the temporal focus of someone's ...

  The idea of tailored messaging sounds great: Just deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time, and in the right context ( Kiesler, 1966 ). But implementation can be challenging. What is the "right message," for example, and how does it vary from person to person, or for a single person from one point in time to another? There are various approaches to creating tailored messages, and my research team has tried several of them in previous research.  A first pass at message tailoring might involve personalization . For instance, if you pick a message about exercise that was written specifically for 50-year-old White men with a family history of heart disease, I'm likely to pay attention because it speaks to my own situation and my personal risk factors. A generic message like "exercise is good for your heart" is less persuasive because it's not specifically about me, even though it is equally true. One common type of message tailoring, t...

  Jerome Frank's 1961 book Persuasion and Healing  popularized the idea of "common factors" that explain the benefits of psychotherapy, building on ideas that were first articulated by Saul Rosenzweig in 1936 and again by Sol Garfield in 1957. Frank's book emphasized the importance of (a) the therapeutic relationship, (b) the therapist's ability to explain the client's problems, (c) the client's expectation of change, and (d) the use of healing rituals. Later theorists emphasized other factors like feedback and empathy that are sub-components of the therapeutic relationship, and that can be clearly differentiated from specific behavior-change techniques like cognitive restructuring or behavioral reinforcement . Additional aspects of therapy that are sometimes identified as common factors include the opportunity to confront difficult past experiences, the opportunity for a "corrective emotional experience" with the therapist, and the chance t...