How can framing effect be reduced in decisions

More recently, in a study of imagination inflation, Thomas and Bulevich found that instructional manipulations were successful in attenuating typical age-related deficits in source monitoring.

Similarly, Bulevich and Thomas n. The present study extends the benefits of environmental support to the domain of decision making. An important contribution of the present study is the finding that both younger and older adults benefit from the same techniques. That is, both groups demonstrated unbiased decision making when indirectly primed to think about expected values and directly instructed to engage in analytic processing.

These results suggest that within the context of the framing effect, age differences that have previously been found may not be a result of changes in cognitive resources. Rather, these differences may be a result in accessibility of information that influences the decision or differences in the strategies that each group may employ to make decisions.

Importantly, in Experiment 1 of the present study, older adults demonstrated increased susceptibility to the framing effect as compared to younger adults. This result is puzzling in light of findings presented by Mikels and Reed , who demonstrated age equivalent risk aversion when presented with gain frames, and greater risk seeking tendencies in younger adults than older adults when presented with loss frames.

Although the present study used decision prompts similar to those employed by Mikels and Reed, the concurrent memory task may have influenced older adult decision making in unintended ways.

Whereas younger adults may still have examined expected values in this condition, older adults may have prematurely halted the analytic process. Alternatively, the memory task may have resulted in a working memory burden. As such, the task may have reduced the cognitive resources required for both older and younger adults to engage in unbiased decision making, which, in turn, may have led to the framing effect.

That is, older adults did not demonstrate increased risk averse or risk seeking behavior as compared with younger adults. The instructional manipulation in Experiment 2 may have led to the instantiation of similar processes across both age groups. When instructed to think like a scientist, both older and younger adults may have spent time considering all components of the decision prompts.

This hypothesized analysis may have resulted in unbiased decision making. Alternatively, when instructed to rely on gut reactions, careful analysis may have been appropriately truncated in both age groups. Participants may have relied on whatever information was most accessible. In this case, our results suggest that participants relied on the valence of the frame. The latency data further support this accessibility explanation. That is, decisions were made more quickly when participants engaged in the memory task or when they were given intuition instructions, as compared with when they engaged in the probability calculation task or when they were given reasoning instructions.

The findings from both experiments are consistent with several models that have been proposed to account for the framing effect i. The present study does not differentiate among these models. Rather, we demonstrate that unbiased decision making can result from both direct and indirect encouragement to use specific cognitive processes. Finally, our results do not clearly indicate age-related susceptibility to the framing effect.

The relationship between general cognitive ability and the framing effect may be complicated. Studies may sometimes demonstrate age-related susceptibility when testing older adults who show significant, but within normal range, cognitive deficits.

Supporting this conclusion, Henninger, Madden, and Huettel demonstrated that age-related differences in decision-making performance reflected age-related differences in two underlying cognitive factors. Differences in processing speed and aspects of memory account for the age-differences in the IGT. Alternatively, in some cases, age-related susceptibility due to cognitive deficits may be counteracted by some form of age-related compensatory mechanisms, for example, in the form of added experience.

Both of these factors may influence the sometimes found age-invariance in the framing effect. The present study examined two techniques that can be used to reduce the framing effect in older and younger adults.

Both techniques we designed to increase the use of specific kinds of cognitive processes, either through instructions or by directing attention to information within the decision prompts. We found that when participants thought about expected values or were encouraged to engage in analytic processing, the frame effect was eliminated. Our results suggest that the framing effect can be overcome if participants are encouraged to engage in more effortful analytic processes.

Most importantly, our results demonstrate that older adults can use more effortful cognitive processes even when encouragement to do so is minimal. In the present research, and in much of the framing effect literature, the frame effect was eliminated when individuals carefully examined their options.

This careful examination can be extremely taxing of cognitive resources. As these resources have been hypothesized to decline with age it is important for researchers to determine the situations in which older adults maintain some ability to engage, ways in which older adults can be encouraged to engage, as well as situations in which these processes may not be necessary for successful decision making.

These experiments were completed to fulfill a senior honors thesis project, reviewed by Dr Ayanna K. Thomas committee chair and Dr Richard A. Chechile, both Department of Psychology, Tufts University.

Google Scholar. Google Preview. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Sign In or Create an Account. Sign In. Advanced Search. Search Menu. Article Navigation. Close mobile search navigation Article Navigation. Volume 67B. Article Contents Abstract. G eneral D iscussion.

Thomas , Ayanna K. Oxford Academic. Peter R. Cite Cite Ayanna K. Select Format Select format. Permissions Icon Permissions. Abstract Objectives. Aging , Cognitive resources , Decision making , Framing effect. Table 1. Open in new tab. Table 2. Google Scholar Crossref.

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Different frames draw out different aspects of the work. Putting a painting in a red frame brings out the red in the work; putting the same painting in a blue frame brings out the blue. How someone frames an issue influences how others see it and focuses their attention on particular aspects of it.

Framing is the essence of targeting a communication to a specific audience. There are a few strategies for reducing the framing effect.

Involvement can be thought of as how invested you are in an issue. What we can take from these findings, is that we should think through our choices concerning an issue and try to become more informed on it. A more specific strategy that falls in line with this more general approach is to provide rationales for our choices. A study found this reduced framing effects in participants as it forced them to engage in more detailed mental processing.

In this study, Tversky and Kahneman asked participants to decide between two treatments for people who contracted a fatal disease. This was done with either positive framing how many people would live or negative framing how many people would die. This demonstrated that the choices we make are also influenced by the way they are framed.

Framing effects have been shown to influence legal proceedings. A paper written in by Stephanos Bibas, a U. Defendants with a loss frame see acquittal as the baseline, and anything worse than this as a loss. Bibas believes this advantages prosecutors, as defendants often stand to gain from concessions and bargaining.

However, he goes on to claim that some defendants see plea bargains through the lens of gains. The study was composed of two groups of participants: the first group was made up of healthy volunteers, and the other of cancer patients.

Both groups were asked to choose between two cancer treatment options. The first treatment option was toxic, while the second was non-toxic but less effective than the toxic option. The option was framed to participants in one of three ways: probability of living a positive frame , probability of dying a negative frame , probability of living and dying a mixed frame.

The Framing effect is when our decisions are influenced by the way information is presented. A loss is perceived as more significant, and therefore more worthy of avoiding, than an equivalent gain. Due to the availability heuristic , we favor information that is easily understood and recalled. The affect heuristic may cause us to favor information and options that are framed to elicit an immediate emotional response. A paper concluded that framing has a significant role in plea bargaining in legal proceedings.

This advantages prosecutors, as defendants often stand to gain from concessions and bargaining. A more specific strategy that falls in line with this more general approach, is to provide rationales for our choices.

A study found this reduced framing effects in participants, as it forced them to engage in more detailed mental processing. What is illusion of explanatory depth? The illusion of explanatory depth IOED describes our belief that we understand more about Reactive devaluation refers to our tendency to disparage proposals made by another party, especially if this party is viewed as The hard-easy effect occurs when we incorrectly predict our ability to complete tasks depending on their level of difficulty.

Why do our decisions depend on how options are presented to us? Framing Effect , explained. What is the Framing Effect? Individual effects Decisions based on the framing effect are made by focusing on the way the information is presented instead of the information itself.

Systemic effects The framing effect can have considerable influence on public opinion. Why it happens Our choices are influenced by the way options are framed through different wordings, reference points, and emphasis. Our brain uses shortcuts Processing and evaluating information takes time and energy. Following are some instances wherein the framing of the same information can lead a person to choose one option over another:. It describes how people evaluate their losses and acquire insight in an asymmetric fashion.

Unlike the expected utility theory which models the decision making of perfectly rational agents, the prospect theory aims to describe the actual conduct of individuals, and finds application in behavioral finance and economics. Moreover, while a probabilistic deprivation is favored over a sure deprivation, a definite gain is preferred to a probabilistic gain.

Herein, the framing effect becomes manifest when individuals are offered various options within the context of merely one of the frames Druckman, The participants of the study were asked to choose between two options for treatment for people afflicted with a fatal disease. The first option was likely to result in the deaths of people. These two options were then presented to the participants of the study with either a negative framing describing how many would die , or a positive framing relating how many would live.

The results of the experiment demonstrated that choices which people make when they are offered options to choose from are influenced not merely by the substance of the information but also by the framing thereof.

An analysis of plea-bargaining literature has yielded results unveiling the impact of framing on the criminal justice system Bibas, Conventional wisdom holds that parties may strike a plea bargain in light of expected trial outcomes.

According to this view, following a forecast of the anticipated sentence, the parties would deduct from it the possibility of exoneration, and offer a proportional discount. This conventional model however, notably ignores the heuristics and the psychological biases which may warp the decision making process. Among these biases are loss aversion, risk preferences and framing which can significantly shape the bargaining outcomes.

While skillful lawyering may ameliorate some biases, evidence suggests that the impact of framing remains a crucial component in the process. The participant pool for this experiment comprised experimental economists, a group which one might perceive to be cognizant of, and therefore, resistant to the framing effect.

The experiment was administered during the runup to a conference the participants were to attend. The first group was presented the information concerning the difference between early and late payment fees in a positive frame as a discount. The second group was given the same information in a negative frame as a late penalty.

The results indicated that while the junior experimental economists were influenced by the framing effect, the more senior economists were not. A research study by James Druckman of the University of Minnesota sought to investigate how framing effects may be reduced or overcome Druckman, Druckman utilized two experiments to demonstrate the role of advice on how individuals should decide when various options are offered.

The first experiment used a variation of the experiment of Kahneman and Tversky described above: choosing a hypothetical treatment for people with a fatal disease. The second experiment presented the participants a hypothetical choice between surgery and radiation to treat lung cancer, along with a recommendation from specialists from two prominent medical research organizations on which option to choose.

Results from both the experiments seem to indicate that recommendation or endorsement from a supposedly credible source could dramatically decrease or even eliminate the framing effect. A merely intuitive approach might suggest that the framing effect remains constant despite the language, or perhaps that the difficulty associated with a foreign tongue may in fact amplify the framing effect because the challenges in comprehension could make the decision-making process less systematic.

However, research demonstrates that employing a foreign language actually reduces decision-making biases. Results from 4 experiments showed that when various options for choice were presented to the participants in their native tongue, they were risk seeking for losses and risk averse for gains. However, when the same options were offered in a foreign tongue the participants were immune to this framing manipulation.

This outcome suggests that the framing effect vanishes when the choices are presented in a foreign language. Two additional experiments demonstrated that employing a foreign language could increase the acceptance of real and hypothetical bets with positive expected value by reducing loss aversion.

The greater emotional and cognitive distance afforded by a foreign language seems to account for these outcomes.