Modeling dynamic inconsistency with a changing reference point

A rational principle of decision making called dynamic consistency was tested by presenting decision makers with a sequence of two gambles. The first gamble was obligatory. Before playing the first gamble, participants were asked to make a planned choice as to whether they would take the second gamble. After experiencing the actual results of the first gamble, decision makers were asked to make a final choice regarding the second gamble. Dynamic consistency requires agreement between the planned and final choices. Violations of dynamic consistency were observed, e.g. anticipating a gain in the first gamble, decision makers planned to take the second gamble; after experiencing the gain, they changed their minds and rejected the second gamble. Two models of dynamic inconsistency were compared. One assumes that experience shifts the reference point and changes the utility associated with the gamble; another assumes that experience changes the subjective probability associated with the gamble. The reference point model provided the best account for the findings. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pervasiveness of framing effects among physicians and medical students

Researchers have been documenting the influence of framing upon decision making for more than two decades; decisions appear to change in response to superficial changes in the presentation of possible outcomes. Several studies of medical decision making have revealed; for instance, that clinical decisions differ when options are presented as gains (survival rates) rather than losses (mortality rates). However, most studies of framing effects in the medical domain have utilized a very limited number of clinical problems that have not allowed an adequate test of the prevalence of the phenomena. To extend previous studies, we presented three groups of subjects (experienced internists, residents, and third-year medical students) with booklets containing twelve hypothetical medical cases. Half of the subjects received gain versions and half received loss versions of the same cases. Chi-square analyses revealed that framing did not influence any of the decisions of medical students and influenced the decisions of residents and experienced physicians on only two of the clinical problems (the same two problems). It appears that the prevalence of framing effects in the clinical domain may be limited.     

情绪、边框影响决策认知过程的实验研究

借用问题空间,通过实验探讨情绪、边框对决策认知过程的影响,以进一步考察边框效应的本质特点。结果如下：情绪、边框均独立对决策认知过程产生影响;积极、消极信息导致不同的加工方式;积极信息既利于节省认知资源,又利于作出符合当前环境的决策。     

时间距离、封面故事和概率对框架效应的影响

研究一以时间距离和封面故事为变量考察对认知相关性的影响, 结果发现时间距离、封面故事及二者间的交互作用显著。坏封面故事中, 人们对1年后发生的事件要比1周、5年与50年后事件的认知相关程度都高, 即最重视; 好封面故事中, 4个时间距离间的认知相关程度差异不显著。研究二在1周、1年、5年和50年四个时间距离下, 探讨封面故事、框架和概率对风险偏好的影响, 结果表明：仅当时间距离为1周时, 不同概率在坏封面故事中风险倾向的差异显著。同时, 大概率下, 封面故事、封面故事与框架的交互作用对风险偏好的影响达到显著水平, 表现出在坏封面故事中, 与负面框架相比, 正面框架下风险回避的比例更高, 符合框架效应。结合研究一、二发现框架效应正发生在认知相关程度最低时。     

The effect of salience on mental accounting: how integration versus segregation of payment influences purchase decisions

Although mental accounting principles are generally robust, the integration‐of‐losses principle often fails. This research argues that when information salience is high, people actively segregate. To demonstrate that effect, this research uses purchase decision making for which the total payment is a key decision factor and compares examples such as the following equivalent total payments: “$120.95 for a stroller plus $19.95 for shipping” (i.e., segregation) versus “$140.90 for a stroller including shipping” (i.e., integration). Two studies demonstrate that integration increases purchase intentions when the salience of the smaller payment is higher. Specifically, integration leads to higher purchase intentions than does segregation when (1) the surcharge is visually more salient, (2) the surcharge is easy to process, and (3) price perceptions are stimulus instead of recall driven. Therefore, this research extends mental accounting by identifying conditions in which the integration‐of‐losses principle is likely to prevail. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing plans: Dynamic inconsistency and the effect of experience on the reference point

This article presents a new test of a principle of decision making calleddynamic consistency. This principle was tested in an experiment in which participants were asked to make decisions about a second gamble within a sequence of two gambles. Participants were first asked to make a planned choice about the second gamble. The planned choice was madebefore the first gamble was played and was conditioned on the anticipated outcomes of the first gamble.After the first gamble was played, the same participants were asked to make a final choice about the second gamble, conditioned on the experienced outcome of the first gamble. The results showed that participants’ final choices were frequently inconsistent with their plans, even when the anticipated and experienced outcomes were identical. These inconsistencies occurred in a systematic direction. Experiencing an anticipated gain resulted with a change toward risk aversion, and experiencing an anticipated loss resulted in a change toward risk seeking. These results are explained in terms of the effect of actual experience on the reference point used for the evaluation of the decision problem.     

Finding the Right Value: Framing Effects on Domain Experts

By defining the essence of a policy problem, an issue frame shapes how individuals think about a political issue. In this research, we investigate framing effects among domain experts, an understudied yet increasingly important set of individuals in the policymaking process. Because domain experts have extensive and highly structured knowledge on a particular topic, they are likely to actively process issue frames to which they are exposed. Consequently, we hypothesize that frames consistent with experts' values will be particularly influential, whereas frames inconsistent with their values will lead to contrast effects. We test our hypotheses on a unique set of domain experts by examining professional farmers' attitudes toward no‐till agriculture. Using an experimental design, we find evidence that environmental values interact with frames to influence farmers' interest in no‐till, especially when farmers are exposed to a novel frame.     

The Influence of Identity Salience on Framing Effectiveness: An Experiment

Efforts to influence attitudes on highly polarizing issues, such as climate change, often fail because individuals interpret political messages through the lens of their partisan identities. However, shifting the identity lens through which an individual interprets a message may result in more effective political communication. Through a preregistered survey experiment (n = 978), this study tested how priming either a partisan or a nonpartisan (parental) identity influenced the effectiveness of a climate change frame on several attitudinal outcomes. Findings suggest that identity salience—specifically partisan identity salience—can influence the effectiveness of a frame. Among Republican parents, receiving a message about the impact of climate change on future generations increased climate change concern and intended proclimate political behaviors, but this framing effect disappeared when a partisan identity was first primed. Among Democrat parents, framing had no significant effect until a partisan identity was first primed. The findings offer important insight into the role that identity salience plays in framing effectiveness and suggest that political communication on polarized issues is likely to be more effective at building bipartisan agreement when nonpartisan identities are salient.     

心理疲劳与任务框架对风险决策的影响

本研究探讨心理疲劳对风险决策的影响, 以及任务框架对这一关系的调节作用。研究采用2 (疲劳, 非疲劳) × 2 (获益框架, 损失框架)被试间设计,实验组接受心理疲劳诱导后完成风险决策任务, 控制组直接完成风险决策任务。方差分析结果显示, 相对于非心理疲劳组, 心理疲劳状态下个体更倾向于风险规避, 且不受任务框架的影响。     

Framing of Decisions: Effect on Active and Passive Risk Avoidance

Decision makers intending to avoid risk in a decision situation can choose a less risky alternative (passive risk avoidance) or intervene actively in an alternative applying a risk‐defusing action (active risk avoidance). In Experiment 1 (64 participants), we compared active and passive risk defusing in two framing conditions. In the negative frame, in the uncertain alternative, a change to the worse was possible; in the positive frame, a change to an improvement was possible. Each participant decided in both framing conditions. As expected, active risk avoidance behavior for preventing a negative outcome (i.e., in the negative frame) was more likely than for promoting a positive one (i.e., in the positive frame). If decision makers did not or could not actively defuse the risk, they chose in correspondence to the classical pattern: risk avoidance in the positive frame and risk seeking in the negative one. We replicated the latter result in a second experiment (32 participants). The classical framing pattern in passive risk avoidance in both experiments is remarkable, because participants were not presented or did not search for exact probabilities. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Framing and the Role of the Second Actor: An Application of Prospect Theory to Bargaining

An actor's frame of reference significantly affects that actor's risk attitude. Although the frame of reference is often taken as a given, earlier work shows it to be the result of an actor's assumptions and beliefs, which can be manipulated by a second actor in a bargaining situation. As modeled here, confidence in selected assumptions can be manipulated by one of two means: changing the confidence of the actor about the future domain, and getting the actor to adopt a particular domain by discounting the utility of a course of action. Both methods force a change in the perceived domain and a shift in risk attitude. In addition to showing manipulation of an actor's frame, the model adds to our understanding of Kahneman and Tversky's original expression of prospect theory.     

Framing the Ultimatum Game: Gender differences and autonomic responses

The present study aimed at investigating whether the way offers are framed in the Ultimatum Game (UG) affects behavioral and autonomic responses in men and women. The “I give you” and “I take” expressions were used as gain and loss frames, respectively. Skin conductance and heart rate were recorded as indices of autonomic activation in response to unfair, mid‐value, and fair offers. Acceptance rates were higher in men than in women under the gain frame. Moreover, men showed higher acceptance rates under the gain than under the loss frame with mid‐value offers, whereas women's choices were not affected by frame. On the physiological level, men produced differential autonomic response patterns during decision‐making when offers were presented under gain and loss framing. The “I take” frame, by acting as a loss frame, elicited in men the characteristic defensive response pattern that is evoked by aversive stimulation, in which increases in skin conductance are coupled with increases in heart rate. On the other hand, the “I give you” frame, by acting as a gain frame, elicited in men increases in skin conductance associated with prevailing heart rate deceleratory responses, reflecting a state of enhanced attention and orienting. In contrast, women's autonomic reactivity was not affected by frame, consistent with behavioral results. Phasic changes in heart rate were crucial in revealing differential functional significance of skin conductance responses under different frames in men, thus questioning the assumption that this autonomic measure can be used as an index of negative emotional arousal in the UG.     

框架效应认知加工的脑半球定位研究

框架效应是行为决策中的经典"异像"。以往研究大多以亚洲疾病问题为决策情景,以学生为被试,本研究改变该做法。在中国背景下,以有工作经验的被试为样本,以创业风险决策为情景,通过被试者间设计的实验室实验,研究探讨了框架效应的大脑半球定位。结果表明,右脑激活条件下更容易出现框架效应,与此相应的,倾向以整体/启发式思维的个体更易出现框架效应。文章还对未来研究做了展望。     

The beneficial effect of contextual emotion on memory: the role of integration

This study investigates the effects of emotion on the integration mechanism which binds together the components of an event and the relations between these components and encodes them within a memory trace [Versace, R., Vallet, G. T., Riou, B., Lesourd, M., Labeye, É, & Brunel, L. (2014). Act-In: An integrated view of memory mechanisms. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26(3), 280–306. doi:10.1080/20445911.2014.892113]. Based on the literature, the authors argue that, in a memory task, contextual emotion could strengthen the integration mechanism and, more specifically, the relations between a target item and its contextual features. To test this hypothesis, the authors used two odorants (neutral and negative) to compare the effects of a negative context with those of a neutral one on three different types of recall: item recall (memory for pictures objects), source recall (spatial position of the pictures in a matrix) and recall of the association between an item and its location. The results showed that, in the negative odour context, association recall and source recall – but not item recall – were better than in the neutral odour context thus confirming the effect of emotion on integration. The results lead to the hypothesis that the effects of emotion on memory are linked to the way emotion is introduced into the experimental settings: via the items to be memorised or via the context.     

权力感对风险决策框架效应的影响

框架效应是指由于对事物描述方式的改变而引起决策者偏好反转的现象。以权力的接近-抑制理论以及模糊痕迹理论为基础,研究探索了权力感对风险决策框架效应的影响及其发生机制。实验一通过回忆法对170名学生被试进行权力操纵,综合运用四种类型的决策情境,研究考察了权力感与框架效应的关系。结果发现,高权力组被试的框架效应显著,低权力组被试者的框架效应不显著。实验二探讨权力感与框架效应的内在机制。结果发现,信息加工深度中介权力感与框架效应之间的关系     

框架效应及其认知机制的研究进展

框架效应违背了不变性原则,是描述性决策理论违背规范性理论的经典异像。以亚洲疾病问题为代表的经典框架效应又称作风险选择框架效应,此外还包括特征框架效应等不同类别。框架效应受损益值类型和大小等社会线索影响。除展望理论可以解释其认知机制外,模糊痕迹理论和概率心理模型等也对此加以解释。框架效应的脑机制在大脑右半球和杏仁核等区域。文章最后对全文做了总结及展望。     

风险决策任务中时间距离对框架效应的影响

通过考察中国大学生时间距离的认知相关性,并进而探讨时间距离对风险决策任务加工方式及框架效应的影响.实验一通过问卷调查发现,与发生时间相对较远的事件相比,相对较近的事件,其认知相关性更大,验证了时间距离的认知相关性假设.在此基础上,以时间距离为自变量,设计小同的风险决策任务,考察框架效应发生的可能性(实验二、实验三).结果显示,时间距离近时,框架效应不明显;时间距离远时,框架效应明显.其原因是,发生在相对不远的将来事件引起分析加工模式,导致框架效应的减弱;发生在相对远的将来事件引起整体加工模式,导致框架效应的增强.     

决策任务类型与结果框架对风险决策的影响

本研究考察生命和金钱问题下,获得和损失框架中决策任务类型对风险决策的影响。采用2（任务领域：生命、金钱）×2（决策任务类型：经验、描述）×2（结果框架：获得、损失）被试间设计,使用卡方检验及logistic回归分析后发现：生命和金钱问题下,个体在直接给出方案可能结果的描述性决策中仅表现出损失框架下的风险偏好;在通过自主查看方案可能结果的经验性决策中未发现结果框架作用。描述−经验差距一致性存在于生命和金钱问题中。     

Values, Framing, and Citizens' Thoughts about Policy Issues: Effects on Content and Quantity

This study examines how frames invoking a core value shape the content and quantity of citizens' thoughts about a policy issue. An experimental study showed that exposure to a pro-school voucher equality frame increased the probability that participants would invoke equality in their open-ended survey responses. Exposure to an anti-school voucher equality frame produced the same effect, as did exposure to both frames. At the same time, participants who received either frame or both frames provided fewer open-ended responses. Thus, the frames appeared to focus participants' thoughts on one value while reducing the overall extent to which they thought about the issue. In broader terms, value framing may have implications for the nature and quality of public deliberation about policy issues—a point that scholars should keep in mind when considering how to define and study framing effects.     

阈下特征框架效应心理机制初探

特征框架效应是指当分别以积极框架和消极框架来描述给定情景中的某一事物或事件的关键特征时,一般情况下人们更偏好以积极框架来描述其关键特征的事物或事件的现象.本研究通过2个实验验证了阈下特征框架效应的存在及其产生机制.实验一发现,阈下特征框架效应只在有时间压力下才会产生.实验二发现,被试对与框架类型一致的词汇判断的反应时比对与框架类型不一致的词汇判断的反应时更快,这在一定程度上说明特征框架效应的产生是因为框架激活了与框架一致性的信息,起到了语义启动的作用,从而导致被试判断任务的评定值偏向该框架类型.