Concept
Framing effect
Ninety per cent success and ten per cent failure can describe the same result. Your choice may not treat them that way.
When it fits
- Use it when positive, negative, gain, or loss wording seems to change an otherwise comparable choice.
When to avoid it
- Not every wording change preserves meaning. If the facts, population, outcomes, or time horizon changed, you are comparing different decisions.
The idea
A frame changes how the same underlying information is described. If the choice moves while the outcomes stay equivalent, the wording may be doing part of the decision-making. First make sure the facts really are the same; different facts are not a framing effect.
An example
A plan is described as succeeding in 90 of 100 comparable cases, then as failing in 10 of the same 100 cases. The arithmetic matches; the emotional emphasis does not.
Check your result
Rewrite the option in a neutral or opposite frame without changing outcomes, probabilities, population, or time period. Does your preference change, and why?
Keep this limit in mind
- Not every wording change preserves meaning. If the facts, population, outcomes, or time horizon changed, you are comparing different decisions.
- Do not use a bias label to diagnose or discredit a person.
Evidence and sources
Tversky and Kahneman reported preference reversals when decision problems were described in different ways.
Supports the scoped report of preference reversals; does not test the corpus procedure.
The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice · Publisher/PubMed abstract
All sources (1)
- The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice — Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman