Gain or non‐loss: The message matching effect of regulatory focus on moral judgements of other‐orientation lies

Previous studies found that individuals with promotion focus are more likely to be persuaded by messages framed in terms of gain‐related words; individuals with prevention focus are more likely to be persuaded by messages framed in terms of loss‐related words. This is known as the message matching effect of regulatory focus. The present study extended this effect into the field of moral judgement of other‐orientation lies. Two experiments were conducted, revealing that (a) individuals with promotion focus judged gain‐framed other‐orientation lies to be more moral, while individuals with prevention focus judged non‐loss‐framed other‐orientation lies to be more moral; and (b) the subjective processing fluency had a partial mediating role in the message matching effect. Theoretical implications and future research directions were discussed.     

心理距离、封面故事对框架效应的影响

该研究旨在比较志愿决策和“亚洲疾病”决策两种任务领域下,人们风险偏好的特征情况,以考察远、近不同社会距离对风险偏好的影响.同时,在传统的坏封面故事下,增设好封面故事情景,以期发现封面故事作为决策前的必要背景信息对人们决策的影响.选取高中生为被试,结果发现：（1）在近的社会距离下决策时,风险偏好受到时间距离、封面故事、概率和框架的影响;在远的社会距离下,这些因素的影响作用不大;（2）志愿决策中,风险偏好仅在小概率条件下,受封面故事、框架等因素的影响;在好封面故事下,风险偏好受到框架的影响;在坏的封面故事下,风险偏好受时间距离和框架的交互作用影响.     

Matching the graphical display of data to avoidance versus approach motivation increases outcome expectancies

This study is the first demonstration of the effect of motivational focus (approach vs. avoidance) on the interpretation of graphical view of personal data, specifically, weight loss progress. In two experiments, participants were randomly assigned to see the bogus weight loss data charted against either a goal or a baseline reference line. In the first experiment, we accessed participants' chronic motivational focus. In the second study, we primed motivation by exposing the participants to either a gain- or loss-focused health message. The results demonstrate that participants with either chronic or manipulated approach motivation predicted higher future weight loss in the goal reference line condition than in the baseline reference line condition. The opposite pattern was observed for participants with either chronic or manipulated avoidance motivation. The potential of matching graphical data display to personality characteristics to promote effective health management is discussed.     

The media's presentation of human rights during the financial crisis: framing the ‘issues’

As forms of employment and migration changed, the financial crisis which began in 2007 affected the human rights of individuals, particularly those in developing countries. How the media reported on these consequences is essential in understanding how and why public and political perceptions of the importance of human rights may have changed since the crisis began. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis of major newspapers in the UK and the USA, this paper seeks to understand the ways in which the media presented the relationship between the negative changes in the economy and human rights. The analysis of the findings uses framing theory to understand how the text in news articles communicates the relevance of human rights to readers before concluding with some further avenues for research.     

Framing Childhood Obesity: How Individualizing the Problem Affects Public Support for Prevention

Political actors recognize the power of framing problems using personalized examples and causal stories to shape public opinion. Yet little is known about how these frames interact. This research presents the results of three studies designed to investigate the effect of “individualizing” the problem of childhood obesity, in combination with information about causes of obesity, on public support for obesity prevention policies (Studies 1 and 2) and to examine how frequently the news media rely on individual depictions of obese children to portray the problem in actual news coverage (Study 3). Results from two experiments consistently demonstrated that, regardless of how the cause of childhood obesity was framed, when a news report identified an individual obese child, participants were less likely to support prevention policies than when the report described the problem in more general terms. A content analysis indicated that news articles relatively infrequently frame the problem using individualized depictions of a specific child. When specific overweight or obese children were mentioned, news coverage emphasized internal (behavioral and genetic) causes rather than factors external to the child such as neighborhood, economic, or food‐industry factors. Findings underscore the importance of considering attitudes toward a policy's target population when assessing how individual depictions of a policy problem influence public sentiment.     

The persuasive effects of framing messages on fruit and vegetable consumption according to regulatory focus theory

According to Regulatory Focus theory (RFT), outcomes in persuasive messages can be framed in four different ways, as gains, non-gains, losses or non-losses. In study 1, the persuasiveness of all four frames was compared and the presence/absence effect that was expected on the basis of the feature-positive effect was verified: Statements about present outcomes (gain, loss) were more persuasive than those about absent outcomes (non-gain, non-loss). However, this study failed to support the prediction that a gain-framed message would be more persuasive than a loss-framed message when promoting a prevention behaviour. Study 2 was designed to examine the latter finding. It was hypothesised that the threat posed by the loss-framed message in study 1 was too low to elicit a defensive reaction. Therefore, in study 2, the personal relevance of the gain and the loss framed message was manipulated. Consistent with predictions, the gain-framed message was more persuasive than the loss-framed message, but only when the message was personalised to increase self-relevance. Moreover, the effect was due to a significant drop in persuasion in the loss condition, probably caused by a defensive reaction. These data shed a new light on the findings of past framing studies.     

Applying evidence to support ethical decisions: Is the placebo really powerless?

Using placebos in day-to-day practice is an ethical problem. This paper summarises the available epidemiological evidence to support this difficult decision. Based on these data we propose to differentiate between placebo and “knowledge framing”. While the use of placebo should be confined to experimental settings in clinical trials, knowledge framing — which is only conceptually different from placebo — is a desired, expected and necessary component of any doctor-patient encounter. Examples from daily practice demonstrate both, the need to investigate the effects of knowledge framing and its impact on ethical, medical, economical and legal decisions. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “Placebo: Its Action and Place in Health Research Today,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 12–13 April, 2003.     

Alethic desires,framing effects,and deflationism: Reply to Asay

Jamin Asay has recently argued that deflationists about the concept of truth cannot satisfactorily account for our alethic desires, i.e., those of our desires that pertain to the truth of our beliefs. In this brief reply, I show how deflationists can draw on well-established psychological findings on framing effects to explain how the concept of truth behaves within the scope of our alethic desires.     

Social cues and verbal framing in risky choice

We examined how people use social and verbal cues of differing priorities in making social decisions. In Experiment 1, formally identical life – death choice problems were presented in different hypothetical group contexts and were phrased in either a positive or negative frame. The risk‐seeking choice became more dominant as the number of kin in an endangered group increased. Framing effects occurred only in a heterogeneous group context where the lives at risk were a mixture of kin and strangers. No framing effect was found when the same problem was presented in the context of a homogeneous group consisting of either all kin or all strangers. We viewed the framing effects to be a sign of indecisive risk preference due to the differential effects of a kinship cue and a stranger cue on choice. In Experiment 2, we presented the life – death problem in two artificial group contexts involving either 6 billion human lives or 6 billion extraterrestrial lives. A framing effect was found only in the human context. Two pre‐conditions of framing effects appear to be social unfamiliarity of a decision problem and aspiration level of a decision maker. In Experiment 3, we analyzed the direction of the framing effect by balancing the framing. The direction of the framing effect depended on the baseline level of risk preference determined by a specific decision context. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cheating: One common morality for gains and losses but two components of morality itself

Previous studies show that decision makers (DMs) lie more to avoid a loss than achieve a gain. Two compelling mechanisms might explain this observation. One assumes that lying is a risky activity and relates to the shape of the monetary value function described by prospect theory, which assumes (a) increased risk taking for loss frames and (b) an asymmetry between the perceived values of losses and gains. The other relates to the importance of self-esteem functions as expressed in self-concept maintenance models, self-esteem issues being weighed against monetary issues. This alternative explanation assumes that a loss frame serves as a factor lowering moral considerations. We report an experimental study presenting sets of lotteries to DMs, once in a moral context and once in a traditional probabilistic context. The results show that DMs take less risk when lotteries are presented in a moral context. It is also shown that DMs take more risk for losses than gains, this holding for both the moral and probabilistic contexts. This latter result suggests that loss/gain asymmetry can be completely explained by prospect theory factors, and framing makes no difference to the valuing of moral considerations.