IngentaConnect Gain-Loss Framing and Choice: Separating Outcome Formulations fro...

Author: Mandel D.R.

Source: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 85, Number 1, May 2001 , pp. 56-76(21)

Abstract:

This article reexamines the assumptions underlying the disease problem used by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) to illustrate gain-loss formulation effects. It is argued that their reported effect may have been due to asymmetries in the ambiguity of the sure and risky prospects and to the entanglement of two distinct types of formulation manipulations: one having to do with the expected outcomes that are made explicit (positive vs negative) and the other having to do with the descriptors used to convey the relevant expected outcomes (lives saved/not saved vs lives lost/not lost). Two experiments using a formally equivalent problem in which these confounds were eliminated revealed no significant predictive effect of either descriptor or outcomes frames on choice, although a marginally significant framing effect was obtained in Experiment 1 when the signs of the two framing manipulations were congruent. Implications for prospect theory are discussed. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

Keywords: framing effects; formulation effects; choice; gains and losses.

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom:

The full text electronic article is available for purchase. You will be able to download the full text electronic article after payment.

$48.56 plus tax

Gain-Loss Framing and Choice: Separating Outcome Formulations from Descriptor Formulations