Decision Framing

In preparation for the lecture this week our group had to read the article by Mandel, 'Gain-loss framing and choice'. Unfortunately i was not present in the lecture as i was ill, however i had completed all the readings and made all the notes so i will let you know what i came to learn about decision framing from this paper.

The paper is mainly based around the idea of the disease problem in which Tversky and Kahneman came up with. Depending on the way in which the question is 'framed' for example based on either 'lives saved' or 'lives at risk' participants are likely to go for two different answers. If the question is based on the number of lives that can be saved and a sure option is available we would naturally be risk adverse and choose that option, as who wants to risk lives when we can at least 100% save say 200? However on the other hand when asked in a different format i.e. 400 will die people are reluctant to go for the sure thing as the question is framed around lives that are at risk. We tend to be a lot more risk seeking if there is a small opportunity that we can save some lives, however improbable that is.

One of the explanations for this brought up in the paper was that when the statement is 200 lives saved. It doesn't clarify the fact that yes 400 people will die. As people can't see the whole picture they are more likely to believe that yes there is a chance that more will be saved and 200 are definitely saved, but 400 aren't definitely going to die. When missing information is then filled in Kuhberger found that no framing effect was found.

This paper was a lot easier to digest than past weeks and i found myself understanding what i was reading first time around and being able to adapt to it a lot better. I'm not sure whether this topic makes a lot more sense to me or if from reading past papers in the last couple of weeks on expected utility theorys and prospect theorys that it is all making sense at last.

I have discussed with my group about what was done in the lecture and we are beginning our group wiki project on the topic of 'decision framing' this week.