The framing effect is an example of cognitive bias, in which people react to
a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented; e.g.
as a loss or as a gain. People tend to avoid risk when a positive frame is
presented but seek risks when a negative frame is presented. Gain and loss are
defined in the scenario as descriptions of outcomes.
Prospect theory shows that a loss is more significant than the equivalent
gain, that a sure gain is favored over a probabilistic gain, and that a
probabilistic loss is preferred to a definite loss. One of the dangers of
framing effects is that people are often provided with options within the context
of only one of the two frames. The concept helps to develop an
understanding of frame analysis within social movements, and also in the
formation of political opinion where spin plays a large role in political
opinion polls that are framed to encourage a response beneficial to the
organization that has commissioned the poll. It has been suggested that the use
of the technique is discrediting political polls themselves. The effect
reduces, or even eliminates, if ample, credible information is provided to
people. Research
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman explored how different phrasing affected
participants' responses to a choice in a hypothetical life and death situation in
1981. Participants were asked to choose
between two treatments for 600 people affected by a deadly disease. Treatment
A was predicted to result in 400 deaths, whereas treatment B had a 33% chance
that no one would die but a 66% chance that everyone would die. This choice was
then presented to participants either with positive framing, i.e. how many
people would live, or with negative framing, i.e. how many people would die.
Treatment A was chosen by 72% of participants when it was presented with
positive framing dropping to only 22% when the same choice was presented with
negative framing. This effect has been shown in other
contexts: 93% of PhD students registered early
when a penalty fee for late registration was emphasized, with only 67% doing so
when this was presented as a discount for earlier registration.
62% of people disagreed with allowing "public condemnation of democracy", but
only 46% of people agreed that it was right to "forbid public condemnation of
democracy". More people will support an economic
policy if the employment rate is emphasised than when the associated
unemployment rates is highlighted. It has been argued that pretrial
detention may increase a defendant's willingness to accept a plea bargain,
since imprisonment, rather than freedom, will be his baseline, and pleading
guilty will be viewed as an event that will cause his earlier release rather
than as an event that will put him in prison.
= Extensionality violation= In logic, extensionality requires “two
formulas which have the same truth-value under any truth-assignments to be
mutually substitutable salva veritate in a sentence that contains one of these
formulas.” Put simply, objects that have the same external properties are equal.
This principle, applied to decision making, suggests that making a decision
in a problem should not be affected by how the problem is described. For
example, varied descriptions of the same decision problem should not give rise to
different decisions, due to the extensionality principle. If judgments
are made on the bases of irrelevant information as described, that is called
an extensionality violation. = Criticism=
Tversky's and Kahneman's research has later been criticized for a subtle
difference between the phrasings of the options in the two scenarios. Since the
description of treatment A in the positive framing does not explicitly
state that 400 people will die, nor does the description of treatment A in the
negative framing state that 200 people will live, the probability of these
consequences being 100% is only implied. This implication is, however, obvious
only if one can familiarize themselves with both framings, as opposed to the
respondents who participated in the experiment and saw only one of the
framings, either the positive or the negative. In their case, it would be
reasonable to assume, with the positive framing, that by choosing the option A,
the probability of more than 200 people being saved is greater than zero.
Respectively, if introduced only to the negative framing, it is reasonable to
assume that by choosing option A, the probability of more than 400 people
dying is greater than zero. According to these assumptions, it would indeed be
rational for the respondents to choose A over B when introduced to the positive
framing, and B over A when introduced to the negative framing, since the two
framings in case of treatment A are not truly mutually substitutable. In other
words, the statement "200 of 600 lives will be saved" is not mutually
substitutable with the statement "400 of 600 people will die".
Developmental factors The framing effect has consistently
proven to be one of the strongest biases in decision making. In general,
susceptibility to framing effects increases with age. Age difference
factors are particularly important when considering health care and financial
decisions. However, the framing effect seems to disappear when encountering it
in a second language. One explanation of this disappearance is that a second
language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than ones native
tongue. A foreign language is also processed less automatically that a
native tongue. This leads to more deliberation, which can affect decision
making, resulting in decisions that are more systematic.
= Childhood and adolescence= Framing effects in decision-making
become stronger as children age. This is partially because qualitative reasoning
increases with age. While preschoolers are more likely to make decisions based
on quantitative properties, such as probability of an outcome, elementary
schoolers and adolescents become progressively more likely to reason
qualitatively, opting for a sure option in a gain frame and a risky option in a
loss frame regardless of probabilities. The increase in qualitative thinking is
related to an increase in “gist based” thinking that occurs over a lifetime.
However, qualitative reasoning, and thus susceptibility to framing effects, is
still not as strong in adolescents as in adults, and adolescents are more likely
than adults to choose the risky option under both the gain and loss frames of a
given scenario. One explanation for adolescent tendencies toward risky
choices is that they lack real-world experience with negative consequences,
and thus over-rely on conscious evaluation of risks and benefits,
focusing on specific information and details or quantitative analysis. This
reduces influence of framing effects and leads to greater consistency across
frames of a given scenario. Children between the ages of 10-12 are more
likely to take risks and show framing effects, while younger children only
considered the quantitative differences between the two options presented.
= Young adulthood= Younger adults are more likely than
older adults to be enticed by risk-taking when presented with loss
frame trials. In multiple studies of undergraduate
students, researchers have found that students are more likely to prefer
options framed positively. For example, they are more likely to enjoy meat
labeled 75% lean meat as opposed to 25% fat, or use condoms advertised as being
95% effective as opposed to having a 5% risk of failure.
Young adults are especially susceptible to framing effects when presented with
an ill-defined problem in which there is no correct answer and individuals must
arbitrarily determine what information they consider relevant. For example,
undergraduate students are more willing to purchase an item such as a movie
ticket after losing an amount equivalent to the item’s cost than after losing the
item itself. = Older adulthood=
The framing effect is greater in older adults than in younger adults or
adolescents. This may be a result of enhanced negativity bias, though some
sources claim that the negativity bias actually decreases with age. Another
possible cause is that older adults have fewer cognitive resources available to
them and are more likely to default to less cognitively demanding strategies
when faced with a decision. They tend to rely on easily accessible information,
or frames, regardless of whether that information is relevant to making the
decision in question. Several studies have shown that younger adults will make
less biased decisions than older adults because they base their choices on
interpretations of patterns of events and can better employ decision making
strategies that require cognitive resources like working-memory skills.
Older adults, on the other hand, make choices based on immediate reactions to
gains and losses. Older adults' lack of cognitive
resources, such as flexibility in decision making strategies, may cause
older adults to be influenced by emotional frames more so than younger
adults or adolescents. In addition, as individuals age, they make decisions
more quickly than their younger counterparts. It is significant that,
when prompted to do so, older adults will often make a less biased decision
with reevaluation of their original choice.
The increase in framing effects among older adults has important implications,
especially in medical contexts. Older adults are influenced heavily by the
inclusion or exclusion of extraneous details, meaning they are likely to make
serious medical decisions based on how doctors frame the two options rather
than the qualitative differences between the options, causing older adults to
inappropriately form their choices. When considering cancer treatments,
framing can shift older adults’ focus from short- to long-term survival under
a negative and positive frame, respectively. When presented with
treatment descriptions described in positive, negative, or neutral terms,
older adults are significantly more likely to agree to a treatment when it
is positively described than they are to agree to the same treatment when it is
described neutrally or negatively. Additionally, framing often leads to
inconsistency in choice: a change in description qualities after an initial
choice is made can cause older adults to revoke their initial decision in favor
of an alternative option. Older adults also remember positively framed
statements more accurately than negatively framed statements. This has
been demonstrated by evaluating older adults’ recall of statements in
pamphlets about health care issues. See also
Choice architecture Overton window
Prospect theory Status quo bias
Thinking, Fast and Slow Fuzzy-trace theory
Mental accounting References
= Sources= Clark, D. Framing effects exposed.
Pearson Education. Druckman, J.. "Evaluating framing
effects". Journal of Economic Psychology 22: 96–101.
doi:10.1016/S0167-4870(00)00032-5. Druckman, J.. "Using credible advice to
overcome framing effects". Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 17:
62–82. doi:10.109317.1.62. Gächter, S.; Orzen, H.; Renner, E.;
Stamer, C.. "Are experimental economists prone to framing effects? A natural
field experiment". Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2007.11.003. Plous, Scott. The psychology of judgment
and decision making. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-050477-6.
Tversky, Amos; Kahneman, Daniel. "The Framing of decisions and the psychology
of choice". Science 211: 453–458. doi:10.1126/science.7455683. PMID
7455683. Further reading
Kühberger, Anton; Tanner, Carmen. "Risky choice framing: Task versions and a
comparison of prospect theory and fuzzy-trace theory". Journal of
Behavioral Decision Making 23: 314–329. doi:10.1002/bdm.656.