The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions: A Meta-analysis

The Decision Making Individual Differences Inventory and guidelines for the study of individual differences in judgment and decision-making research

Individual differences in decision making are a topic of longstanding interest, but often yield inconsistent and contradictory results. After providing an overview of individual difference measures that have commonly been used in judgment and decision-making (JDM) research, we suggest that our understanding of individual difference effects in JDM may be improved by amending our approach to studying them. We propose four recommendations for improving the pursuit of individual differences in JDM research: a more systematic approach; more theory-driven selection of measures; a reduced emphasis on main effects in favor of interactions between individual differences and decision features, situational factors, and other individual differences; and more extensive communication of results (whether significant or null, published or unpublished). As a first step, we offer our database—the Decision Making Individual Differences Inventory (DMIDI; http://html://www.sjdm.org/dmidi), a free, public resource that categorizes and describes the most common individual difference measures used in JDM research.

The fragility of omics risk and benefit perceptions

How do individuals judge the risks and benefits of toxicogenomics, an emerging field of research which is completely unfamiliar to them? The hypothesis is that individuals' perceptions of the risks and benefits of toxicogenomics are fragile and can by influenced by different issues and context framings as a technology. The researchers expected that the effects on risk and benefit judgements would differ between lay individuals and experts in toxicogenomics. A 2×2×2 experiment that encompassed three factors was conducted. The first factor, issue framing incorporated the field of application for the technology (therapy vs. diagnosis setting). The second factor, context framing included organisations and institutions that would profit from the technology (companies vs. regulatory agencies) and the third factor encompasses the quality of individuals' level of knowledge, for example lay vs. expert knowledge. Research results suggest the differential power of framing effects. It seems that the clues provided by context frames - but not by issue frames - are able to influence the ways in which lay people and experts process information. The findings are interpreted in the line of the fuzzy trace theory that predicts reliance on fuzzy gist representations formed by stereotypes on a wide range of judgement problem including risk and benefit perceptions.

Intentions to use hormonal male contraception: The role of message framing, attitudes and stress appraisals

Two studies are reported. Study one (N = 104) explored the extent to which male hormonal contraception is perceived as risky compared to other prevention behaviours. Study two examined the effects of message framing on intentions to use hormonal male contraception and investigated whether attitude moderates message framing effects. Three hundred and four participants read either a loss frame or gain frame message and then completed questionnaires assessing their intentions to use hormonal male contraception, stress appraisals and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) variables. Exposure to a loss frame influenced intention to use the daily male pill in men with a more positive attitude. This suggests that attitude, but not other TPB variables or stress appraisals have the capacity to moderate framing effects. Stress appraisals, in addition to TPB variables, significantly predicted variance in behavioural intentions in men and women. These findings are discussed within the context of Prospect Theory, perceived risk and prevention/detection behaviours.

Reference bias: presentation of extreme health states prior to EQ-VAS improves health-related quality of life scores. a randomised cross-over trial

BACKGROUND

Clinical practice and clinical research has made a concerted effort to move beyond the use of clinical indicators alone and embrace patient focused care through the use of patient reported outcomes such as health-related quality of life. However, unless patients give consistent consideration to the health states that give meaning to measurement scales used to evaluate these constructs, longitudinal comparison of these measures may be invalid. This study aimed to investigate whether patients give consideration to a standard health state rating scale (EQ-VAS) and whether consideration of good and poor health state descriptors immediately changes their self-report.

METHODS

A randomised crossover trial was implemented amongst hospitalised older adults (n = 151). Patients were asked to consider descriptions of extremely good (Description-A) and poor (Description-B) health states. The EQ-VAS was administered as a self-report at baseline, after the first descriptors (A or B), then again after the remaining descriptors (B or A respectively). At baseline patients were also asked if they had considered either EQ-VAS anchors.

RESULTS

Overall 106/151 (70%) participants changed their self-evaluation by ≥ 5 points on the 100 point VAS, with a mean (SD) change of +4.5 (12) points (p < 0.001). A total of 74/151 (49%) participants did not consider the best health VAS anchor, of the 77 who did 59 (77%) thought the good health descriptors were more extreme (better) then they had previously considered. Similarly 85/151 (66%) participants did not consider the worst health anchor of the 66 who did 63 (95%) thought the poor health descriptors were more extreme (worse) then they had previously considered.

CONCLUSIONS

Health state self-reports may not be well considered. An immediate significant shift in response can be elicited by exposure to a mere description of an extreme health state despite no actual change in underlying health state occurring. Caution should be exercised in research and clinical settings when interpreting subjective patient reported outcomes that are dependent on brief anchors for meaning.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (#ACTRN12607000606482) http://www.anzctr.org.au.

Quando a forma importa: o efeito de configuração de mensagens na tomada de decisão

O presente artigo se propôs a realizar uma revisão da literatura sobre o efeito de configuração na tomada de decisão. O efeito de configuração refere-se ao achado de que as pessoas respondem de forma distinta a diferentes descrições de um mesmo problema. Para tanto, foi explorado o surgimento da teoria dos prospectos (também denominada teoria prospectiva), que deu origem aos estudos sobre o efeito de configuração, considerando as diferentes variáveis usualmente relacionadas ao referido efeito. O avanço dos estudos culminou no achado de diferentes tipos de efeito de configuração (de risco, de objetivos e de atributos), que divergem quanto a definições operacionais, padrões de resultados e teorias para a interpretação. A teoria dos prospectos, entretanto, prestar-se-ia apenas para a análise e a interpretação do referido efeito exclusivamente em um contexto de risco.

How to reduce the effect of framing on messages about health

BACKGROUND

Patients must be informed about risks before any treatment can be implemented. Yet serious problems in communicating these risks occur because of framing effects.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effects of different information frames when communicating health risks to people with high and low numeracy and determine whether these effects can be countered or eliminated by using different types of visual displays (i.e., icon arrays, horizontal bars, vertical bars, or pies).

DESIGN

Experiment on probabilistic, nationally representative US (n = 492) and German (n = 495) samples, conducted in summer 2008.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Participants' risk perceptions of the medical risk expressed in positive (i.e., chances of surviving after surgery) and negative (i.e., chances of dying after surgery) terms.

KEY RESULTS

Although low-numeracy people are more susceptible to framing than those with high numeracy, use of visual aids is an effective method to eliminate its effects. However, not all visual aids were equally effective: pie charts and vertical and horizontal bars almost completely removed the effect of framing. Icon arrays, however, led to a smaller decrease in the framing effect.

CONCLUSIONS

Difficulties with understanding numerical information often do not reside in the mind, but in the representation of the problem.

Violations-Inducing Framing Effects of Production Goals: Conditions under which goal setting leads to neglecting safety-relevant rules

Violations are a problem for safety-critical organizations, which need to trust in their workers' compliance with rules and regulations. In two studies we investigate the impact of the framing of production outcome goals. The first study was designed in accordance with the classic framing experiments by Kahneman and Tversky (1983) as a paper-based case with two groups ( N=72) reading a story in which they are to envisage themselves in the position of the production supervisor, who decides to comply with or violate a safety-relevant rule in order to meet the production goal. The two groups differ in the framing of the production outcome goals in terms of losses or gains. In contrast to our assumptions and to previous findings, we were unable to replicate the framing effect for a production setting, but 35–45% of participants in both groups were willing to violate the normative rule, independently of the framing. In the second experiment ( N = 39), the experimental groups acted out the role of the supervisor and were trained to use two different start-up strategies for the plant. In the final trial, participants were told that their salary would depend on their performance in this last trial. As a result, in the loss framing conditions, significantly more participants violated the normative rule than in the gain framing condition. Finally, we discuss the implications of framing effects for production settings and their impact on the probability of choosing to violate normative rules.

Public understanding of risks from gene-environment interaction in common diseases: implications for public communications

BACKGROUND/AIMS

Public understanding of the relationship between health behaviors and genes is likely to affect the motivational impact of learning information about one's own genes. Extant research has featured difficulty measuring public understandings of this relationship. This essay explores public understanding of the relationship between genes and behavior, especially with regard to the mathematical relationships to risk concept. It contributes a psychometrically valid scale for measuring beliefs about gene- behavior relationships.

METHODS

Three population representative surveys (n = 633, 658, 1,218) were conducted using the Knowledge Networks panel platform.

RESULTS

Interpretations of risk vary depending on whether genes and behavior are conceived of as health-damaging (loss frame) or health-protecting (gain frame). In the loss frame, the majority of the population adopts an additive model of the relationship with approximately one-third adopting an amplificative model. In the gain frame, beliefs are divided roughly equally among additive, amplificative and sub-additive models. Scores on the nonmathematically based scale indicate higher belief in the existence of interaction than scores on the more concrete question format.

CONCLUSIONS

The existence of different interpretations of gene-behavior relationships based on gain/loss frame and abstract/concrete modes indicates the need to select frame and mode carefully in both teaching and research. Research is needed to identify optimal configurations for teaching and presenting this relatively complex material.

Framing effects: behavioral dynamics and neural basis

This study examined the neural basis of framing effects using life-death decision problems framed either positively in terms of lives saved or negatively in terms of lives lost in large group and small group contexts. Using functional MRI we found differential brain activations to the verbal and social cues embedded in the choice problems. In large group contexts, framing effects were significant where participants were more risk seeking under the negative (loss) framing than under the positive (gain) framing. This behavioral difference in risk preference was mainly regulated by the activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus, including the homologue of the Broca's area. In contrast, framing effects diminished in small group contexts while the insula and parietal lobe in the right hemisphere were distinctively activated, suggesting an important role of emotion in switching choice preference from an indecisive mode to a more consistent risk-taking inclination, governed by a kith-and-kin decision rationality.

Rejection or selection: influence of framing in investment decisions

According to prospect theory, reflection effects result in preferences for risk-averse choices in gain situations and risk-seeking choices in loss situations. However, relevant literature in regard to decision making has suggested that positive information receives more weight in a selection task, whereas negative information receives more weight in a rejection task. The present study examined whether the nature of a decision task (selection vs rejection) would moderate the reflection effects. Undergraduates (47 men, 49 women; M age = 20.5 yr., SD = 1.1), selected according to specific screening criteria, participated in an experimental study. Typical reflection effects were observed in both selection and rejection task conditions. More importantly, negative information (i.e., the information about probable loss in risky choice of gain situations and the information about certain loss in cautious choice of loss situations) provided in the context of a rejection task received more weight and resulted in more frequent endorsements of the cautious choice in gain situations and of the risky choice in loss situations. Hence, the findings suggest that a decision context characterized by rejection may expand the reflection effects and thereby provide important information about situations in which investment decisions occur in a context characterized by rejection.

AFFECT AND THE FRAMING EFFECT WITHIN INDIVIDUALS OVER TIME: RISK TAKING IN A DYNAMIC INVESTMENT SIMULATION

We examined the role of affect (pleasant or unpleasant feelings) and decision frames (gains or losses) in risk taking in a 20-day stock investment simulation in which 101 participants rated their current feelings while making investment decisions. As predicted, affect attenuated the relationships between decision frames and risk taking. After experiencing losses, individuals made more risky choices, in keeping with the framing effect. However, this tendency decreased and/or disappeared when loss was simultaneously experienced with either pleasant or unpleasant feelings. Similarly, individuals' tendency to avoid risk after experiencing gains disappeared or even reversed when they simultaneously experienced pleasant feelings.

The effect of how outcomes are framed on decisions about whether to take antihypertensive medication: a randomized trial

BACKGROUND

We conducted an Internet-based randomized trial comparing three valence framing presentations of the benefits of antihypertensive medication in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) for people with newly diagnosed hypertension to determine which framing presentation resulted in choices most consistent with participants' values.

METHODS AND FINDINGS

In this second in a series of televised trials in cooperation with the Norwegian Broadcasting Company, adult volunteers rated the relative importance of the consequences of taking antihypertensive medication using visual analogue scales (VAS). Participants viewed information (or no information) to which they were randomized and decided whether or not to take medication. We compared positive framing over 10 years (the number escaping CVD per 1000); negative framing over 10 years (the number that will have CVD) and negative framing per year over 10 years of the effects of antihypertensive medication on the 10-year risk for CVD for a 40 year-old man with newly diagnosed hypertension without other risk factors. Finally, all participants were shown all presentations and detailed patient information about hypertension and were asked to decide again. We calculated a relative importance score (RIS) by subtracting the VAS-scores for the undesirable consequences of antihypertensive medication from the VAS-score for the benefit of CVD risk reduction. We used logistic regression to determine the association between participants' RIS and their choice. 1,528 participants completed the study. The statistically significant differences between the groups in the likelihood of choosing to take antihypertensive medication in relation to different values (RIS) increased as the RIS increased. Positively framed information lead to decisions most consistent with those made by everyone for the second, more fully informed decision. There was a statistically significant decrease in deciding to take antihypertensives on the second decision, both within groups and overall.

CONCLUSIONS

For decisions about taking antihypertensive medication for people with a relatively low baseline risk of CVD (70 per 1000 over 10 years), both positive and negative framing resulted in significantly more people deciding to take medication compared to what participants decided after being shown all three of the presentations.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register ISRCTN 33771631.

Maximum vs. minimum values: preferences of speakers and listeners for upper and lower limit estimates

Estimates about uncertain quantities can be expressed in terms of lower limits (more than X, minimum X), or upper limits (less than Y, maximum Y). It has been shown that lower limit statements generally occur much more often than upper limit statements (Halberg & Teigen, 2009). However, in a conversational context, preferences for upper and lower limit statements will be moderated by the concerns of the interlocutors. We report three studies asking speakers and listeners about their preferences for lower and upper limit statements, in the domains of distances, durations, and prices. It appears that travellers prefer information about maximum distances and maximum durations, and buyers (but not sellers) prefer to be told about maximum prices and maximum delivery times. Mistaken maxima are at the same time regarded as more "wrong" than mistaken minima. However, this preference for "worst case" information is not necessarily shared by providers of information (advisors), who are also concerned about being blamed if wrong.

How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making

We review the growing literature on health numeracy, the ability to understand and use numerical information, and its relation to cognition, health behaviors, and medical outcomes. Despite the surfeit of health information from commercial and noncommercial sources, national and international surveys show that many people lack basic numerical skills that are essential to maintain their health and make informed medical decisions. Low numeracy distorts perceptions of risks and benefits of screening, reduces medication compliance, impedes access to treatments, impairs risk communication (limiting prevention efforts among the most vulnerable), and, based on the scant research conducted on outcomes, appears to adversely affect medical outcomes. Low numeracy is also associated with greater susceptibility to extraneous factors (i.e., factors that do not change the objective numerical information). That is, low numeracy increases susceptibility to effects of mood or how information is presented (e.g., as frequencies vs. percentages) and to biases in judgment and decision making (e.g., framing and ratio bias effects). Much of this research is not grounded in empirically supported theories of numeracy or mathematical cognition, which are crucial for designing evidence-based policies and interventions that are effective in reducing risk and improving medical decision making. To address this gap, we outline four theoretical approaches (psychophysical, computational, standard dual-process, and fuzzy trace theory), review their implications for numeracy, and point to avenues for future research.

Prone to Bias: Development of a Bias Taxonomy from an Individual Differences Perspective

We adopt an individual-differences perspective and introduce a model that links types of biases and types of people. We propose that biases are created in the course of people's attempts to satisfy basic motivations, and that 3 such motivation categories underlie many of the biases discussed in the literature. Accordingly, our organizing framework integrates findings from previous research and classifies biases into verification biases, simplification biases, and regulation biases. Individual differences in core self-evaluations, in approach/avoidance temperament, and in cognitive ability and style help explain how biases come about and why some people are more likely than others to exhibit particular biases.

A genetically mediated bias in decision making driven by failure of amygdala control

Genetic variation at the serotonin transporter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) is associated with altered amygdala reactivity and lack of prefrontal regulatory control. Similar regions mediate decision-making biases driven by contextual cues and ambiguity, for example the "framing effect." We hypothesized that individuals hemozygous for the short (s) allele at the 5-HTTLPR would be more susceptible to framing. Participants, selected as homozygous for either the long (la) or s allele, performed a decision-making task where they made choices between receiving an amount of money for certain and taking a gamble. A strong bias was evident toward choosing the certain option when the option was phrased in terms of gains and toward gambling when the decision was phrased in terms of losses (the frame effect). Critically, this bias was significantly greater in the ss group compared with the lala group. In simultaneously acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging data, the ss group showed greater amygdala during choices made in accord, compared with those made counter to the frame, an effect not seen in the lala group. These differences were also mirrored by differences in anterior cingulate-amygdala coupling between the genotype groups during decision making. Specifically, lala participants showed increased coupling during choices made counter to, relative to those made in accord with, the frame, with no such effect evident in ss participants. These data suggest that genetically mediated differences in prefrontal-amygdala interactions underpin interindividual differences in economic decision making.

Bounded Ethicality

Ethical decision making is vulnerable to the forces of automaticity. People behave differently in the face of a potential loss versus a potential gain, even when the two situations are transparently identical. Across three experiments, decision makers engaged in more unethical behavior if a decision was presented in a loss frame than if the decision was presented in a gain frame. In Experiment 1 , participants in the loss-frame condition were more likely to favor gathering “insider information” than were participants in the gain-frame condition. In Experiment 2 , negotiators in the loss-frame condition lied more than negotiators in the gain-frame condition. In Experiment 3 , the tendency to be less ethical in the loss-frame condition occurred under time pressure and was eliminated through the removal of time pressure.

Time and decision making in humans

Decision making requires evaluating alternatives that differ on a number of attributes. During this evaluation process, selection of options depends on the duration of the options, the duration of the expected delay for realizing the options, and the time available to reach a decision. This article reviews the relationship between time and decision making in humans with respect to this evaluation process. Moreover, the role of psychological time, as compared with physical time, is accentuated. Five topics have been selected that illustrate how time and mental representations of time affect decision making. These are (1) the duration of options, (2) temporal decision making, (3) the time between having made a decision and experiencing the consequences of that decision, (4) the temporal perspective of decision makers, and (5) the duration of the decision process. The discussion of each topic is supplemented by suggestions for further research. It is shown that psychological time is often neglected in human decision making but seems to play an important role in the making of choices.

The role of moral utility in decision making: an interdisciplinary framework

What decisions should we make? Moral values, rules, and virtues provide standards for morally acceptable decisions, without prescribing how we should reach them. However, moral theories do assume that we are, at least in principle, capable of making the right decisions. Consequently, an empirical investigation of the methods and resources we use for making moral decisions becomes relevant. We consider theoretical parallels of economic decision theory and moral utilitarianism and suggest that moral decision making may tap into mechanisms and processes that have originally evolved for nonmoral decision making. For example, the computation of reward value occurs through the combination of probability and magnitude; similar computation might also be used for determining utilitarian moral value. Both nonmoral and moral decisions may resort to intuitions and heuristics. Learning mechanisms implicated in the assignment of reward value to stimuli, actions, and outcomes may also enable us to determine moral value and assign it to stimuli, actions, and outcomes. In conclusion, we suggest that moral capabilities can employ and benefit from a variety of nonmoral decision-making and learning mechanisms.