Lecture
The framing effect (from the English frame) — a cognitive bias in which the form in which information is presented influences how a person perceives it. Thus, one and the same statement, depending on its wording and semantic emphasis, can be presented in either a negative or a positive light, as a gain or as a loss.
The role of the framing effect in decision-making was first studied by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1981. In this study, respondents were presented with a hypothetical situation in which the lives of 600 people were threatened by an epidemic. Survey participants were asked to choose one of two programs to combat the deadly disease. The conditions were formulated as follows:
In the second case, the description of the prospects associated with choosing one program or the other was changed:
Thus, the same strategy for combating the epidemic (A and C, respectively) was perceived differently by the study participants depending on how it was framed. When the emphasis was placed on the negative outcome (how many people would die), most respondents preferred to take the risk. Conversely, when the discussion concerned the guaranteed saving of 200 lives (a positive formulation), people decided against the risky second option.
Another example of research into this phenomenon is a 1974 study by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer, aimed at finding out how the wording of questions affects the formation of false memories. In one experiment, participants were shown a video of car accidents, after which they were asked: «About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?». In each group the questions differed slightly: the verb «hit» was replaced with «smashed», «collided», «bumped», and «contacted». As a result, it was found that changes in the wording of the question influenced the estimated speed of the cars, even though all respondents were shown the same clip.
A number of scholars propose the following classification of framing effects: risk-related, attribute, and goal framing. In the first case, the emphasis is on how the information presented affects people's decision to take a risk or, conversely, to avoid it. The second type focuses on the characteristics of the object being described and its corresponding evaluation, while the third focuses on the possible negative or positive consequences of a particular action (or inaction).
In logic, extensionality requires that «two formulas having the same truth value under any truth-value assignment be interchangeable salva veritate in a sentence containing one of these formulas». Put simply, objects with the same external properties are equal. This principle, applied to decision-making, implies that a decision on a problem should not depend on how the problem is described. For example, different descriptions of the same decision problem should not lead to different decisions, in accordance with the principle of extensionality. When judgments are made on the basis of irrelevant information, as described, this is called a violation of extensionality. Eliminating violations of extensionality entails developing an awareness of how different descriptions of a problem can unintentionally influence decisions, and, as a consequence, developing strategies to mitigate such deviations. In doing so, decision-makers may seek to adhere to the principle of extensionality as a guide for navigating the complexity of choice, focusing on decisions that better correspond to the intrinsic properties of the problem rather than to its descriptions.
The framing effect consistently turns out to be one of the largest biases in decision-making. In general, susceptibility to framing effects increases with age. Age-related differences are especially important when it comes to healthcare and financial decisions. Susceptibility to framing can influence how older people perceive and, in turn, respond to information, potentially leading to less optimal choices that can have long-term consequences. For example, in healthcare, where decisions deeply affect well-being, the framing effect can push older people toward or away from certain treatment options depending on how physicians present medical information. Similarly, in financial decision-making, the framing of retirement planning or investment risks can have a significant effect on the choices people make, potentially affecting their financial security and condition later in life.
However, the framing effect appears to disappear when we encounter it in a foreign (non-native) language. One explanation for this disappearance is that a non-native language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native language. A foreign language is also processed less automatically than a native one. This leads to more deliberation, which can affect decision-making, resulting in more systematic decisions.
Framing effects in decision-making become stronger as children grow older. This is partly explained by the fact that categorical thinking strengthens with age. While preschoolers are more inclined to make decisions based on quantitative properties, such as the probability of an outcome, elementary school children and adolescents are increasingly inclined to reason categorically, choosing the sure option within a gain frame and the risky option within a loss frame, regardless of the probabilities. The growth of categorical thinking is associated with the growth of «gist-based» thinking, which occurs throughout life.
However, categorical thinking, and hence 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 in both the gain frame and the loss frame of a given scenario. One explanation for adolescents' tendency toward risky choices is that they lack real experience with negative consequences, and therefore rely too heavily on the conscious assessment of risks and benefits, focusing on specific information and details or on quantitative analysis. This reduces the influence of framing effects and leads to greater consistency between the frames of a given scenario. Children aged 10 to 12 are more likely to take risks and display framing effects, while younger children take into account only the quantitative differences between the two options presented.
Young people are more prone to risk-taking than older people when presented with trials framed as losses. This is a notable phenomenon that highlights the complex interplay between age and decision-making tendencies.
In numerous studies of undergraduate students, scientists have found that students are more likely to prefer options phrased in a positive way. This may be due to various factors, such as a tendency toward novelty-seeking, a more optimistic outlook on outcomes, or even reduced risk aversion characteristic of youth. For example, they are more likely to enjoy meat labeled as 75% lean rather than 25% fat, or to use condoms advertised as 95% effective rather than having a 5% failure rate.
Young people are especially susceptible to framing effects when presented with a vaguely defined problem that has no correct answer, and people must arbitrarily determine which information they consider relevant. For example, undergraduate students are more willing to buy an item, such as a movie ticket, after losing an amount equivalent to the cost of the item than after losing the item itself. This susceptibility highlights the importance of taking psychological factors into account in the context of decision-making. Recognizing this vulnerability underscores the need for decision-makers to be aware of cognitive biases when making decisions that have no clear answer, so that they can take a more informed approach.
It is argued that the framing effect is stronger in older people than in young people or adolescents. This claim may be the result of an increase in negativity bias, although some sources claim that negativity bias actually decreases with age.
In particular, this heightened susceptibility to the framing effect appeared mainly in response to negative frames. Positive frames were found to have no significant effect on the framing effect in older people. This may be partly due to socioemotional selectivity theory, in which increasing age shifts adults' focus from risk-taking toward maximizing their emotional experiences in the present, hence the heightened framing seen in negative frames. Dual-process theory may also play a role, since negative frames evoke less heightened reactions, which leads to the deployment of implicit processes. The implicit process turns out to be sensitive to framing and may thus be the reason why framing is pronounced in negative frames in older people.
Another possible reason is that older people have fewer cognitive resources available to them and are more inclined to default to less cognitively demanding strategies when faced with the need to make a decision. They tend to rely on readily available information or frames, regardless of whether that information is relevant to the decision at hand. Several studies have shown that young people will make less biased decisions than older people because they base their choices on interpretations of the patterns of events and are better able to use decision-making strategies that require cognitive resources, such as working memory skills. Older people, on the other hand, make choices based on an immediate reaction to gains and losses.
The lack of cognitive resources in older people, such as flexibility in decision-making strategies, may lead older people to be more influenced by emotional frames than younger people or adolescents. Furthermore, as people age, they make decisions faster than their younger counterparts. Importantly, when prompted to do so, older people often make a less biased decision by re-evaluating their initial choice.
The increase in framing effects among older people has important implications, especially in a medical context. Older people are strongly influenced by the inclusion or exclusion of extraneous details, meaning that they are likely to make serious medical decisions based on how physicians phrase two options rather than on the qualitative differences between the options, which leads older people to form their choices incorrectly.
When considering cancer treatments, framing can shift older people's focus from short-term to long-term survival in negative and positive frames, respectively. When presented with descriptions of treatments described in positive, negative, or neutral terms, older people are more likely to agree to treatment when it is described positively than when the same treatment is described neutrally or negatively. In addition, framing often leads to inconsistency in choice: changing the qualities of a description after an initial choice has been made can cause older people to reverse their initial decision in favor of an alternative option. Older people also remember positively worded statements better than negatively worded ones. This has been demonstrated by assessing older people's recall of statements in healthcare brochures.
One reason for criticizing the concept is the tendency to consider the effect's influence on decision-making in isolation from context. Thus, a study by James Druckman showed that some well-known framing effects are significantly weakened or disappear altogether when people are given trustworthy recommendations and additional information. One of the author's experiments was based on the aforementioned example from the Tversky and Kahneman study, but the wording of the questions was changed so as to reflect the position of representatives of political parties (Democrats and Republicans). It was ultimately found that the framing effect in this case was conditional in nature, and its influence on people's judgments was significantly reduced.
In a study by Ayanna Thomas and Peter Millar, the possibility of weakening the effect of framing on decisions made by young and older people was also examined. In the decision-making process, respondents were asked, among other things, to perform a probability-calculation task or to begin reasoning «from the position of a scientist». It turned out that these very techniques helped overcome the framing effect. Thus, direct or indirect instructions to analytically examine possible alternatives contributed to people making more objective decisions.
The framing effect can also be overcome by presenting the essence of the problem in a foreign language. Within this approach, despite an increase in «cognitive load», a distancing mechanism kicks in: people's emotional connection to a foreign language is weaker than to their native one — this allows respondents to make less biased decisions.
Reduced emotional pressure also explains the limitation of the framing effect when a person makes a decision on behalf of others. A number of experiments have demonstrated that respondents who made financial decisions on behalf of someone else were not as susceptible to this phenomenon, since the consequences of such decisions did not directly affect them personally.
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