The Impact of Positive and Negative Affect and Issue Framing on Issue Interpretation and Risk Taking

Two studies examined the influence of transient affective states and issue framing on issue interpretation and risk taking within the context of strategic decision making. In Study 1, participants in whom transient positive or negative affective states were induced by reading a short story showed systematic differences in issue interpretation and risk taking in a strategic decision making context. Compared to negative mood participants, those in a positive mood were more likely to interpret the strategic issue as an opportunity and displayed lower levels of risk taking. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by crossing affective states with threat and opportunity frames. Results showed that framing an issue (as a threat or an opportunity) had a stronger impact on issue interpretation among negative affect participants than among positive affect participants. Affective states also moderated the impact of issue framing on risk taking: the effect of framing on risk-taking was stronger under negative rather than positive affect. These results are interpreted via information-processing and motivational effects of affect on a decision maker. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.     

Decisional strategy determines whether frame influences treatment preferences for medical decisions.

Decision makers are influenced by the frame of information such that preferences vary depending on whether survival or mortality data are presented. Research is inconsistent as to whether and how age impacts framing effects. This paper presents two studies that used qualitative analyses of think-aloud protocols to understand how the type of information used in the decision making process varies by frame and age. In Study 1, 40 older adults, age 65 to 89, and 40 younger adults, age 18 to 24, responded to a hypothetical lung cancer scenario in a within-subject design. Participants received both a survival and mortality frame. Qualitative analyses revealed that two main decisional strategies were used by all participants: one strategy reflected a data-driven decisional process, whereas the other reflected an experience-driven process. Age predicted decisional strategy, with older adults less likely to use a data-driven strategy. Frame interacted with strategy to predict treatment choice; only those using a data-driven strategy demonstrated framing effects. In Study 2, 61 older adults, age 65 to 98, and 63 younger adults, age 18 to 30, responded to the same scenarios as in Study 1 in a between-subject design. The results of Study 1 were replicated, with age significantly predicting decisional strategy and frame interacting with strategy to predict treatment choice. Findings suggest that framing effects may be more related to decisional strategy than to age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shaping perceptions to motivate healthy behavior: The role of message framing.

Health-relevant communications can be framed in terms of the benefits (gains) or costs (losses) associated with a particular behavior, and the framing of such persuasive messages influences health decision making. Although to ask people to consider a health issue in terms of associated costs is considered an effective way to motivate behavior, empirical findings are inconsistent. In evaluating the effectiveness of framed health messages, investigators must appreciate the context in which health-related decisions are made. The influence of framed information on decision making is contingent on people, first, internalizing the advocated frame and, then, on the degree to which performing a health behavior is perceived as risky. The relative effectiveness of gain-framed or loss-framed appeals depends, in part, on whether a behavior serves as an illness-detecting or a health-affirming function. Finally the authors discuss the cognitive and affective processes that may mediate the influence of framed information on judgment and behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of positive or negative frame on the choices of students in school psychology and educational administration.

School psychologists and educational administrators are responsible for decisions regarding both programs and individuals in the schools. Research in cognitive psychology has suggested that the framing (i.e., the wording) of decision alternatives may greatly affect which options are chosen. The authors examined whether framing affected choices of doctoral students in school psychology and educational administration. 109 participants responded to 5 decision problems whose outcomes were framed either positively as gains or negatively as losses. Frame and profession significantly affect the number of risky choices. Negative framing led to more risky choices than positive framing, consistent with Prospect Theory. In addition, educational administration students made more risky choices than school psychology students, regardless of framing. The presence of framing effects suggests a barrier to effective decision making because objectively identical versions of alternatives led to different choices. The difference between professions regarding the number of risky choices may represent a barrier to understanding and effective cooperation between these 2 groups. Creatively addressing this challenge may improve interdisciplinary collaboration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions: A Meta-analysis

In framing studies, logically equivalent choice situations are differently described and the resulting preferences are studied. A meta-analysis of framing effects is presented for risky choice problems which are framed either as gains or as losses. This evaluates the finding that highlighting the positive aspects of formally identical problems does lead to risk aversion and that highlighting their equivalent negative aspects does lead to risk seeking. Based on a data pool of 136 empirical papers that reported framing experiments with nearly 30,000 participants, we calculated 230 effect sizes. Results show that the overall framing effect between conditions is of small to moderate size and that profound differences exist between research designs. Potentially relevant characteristics were coded for each study. The most important characteristics were whether framing is manipulated by changing reference points or by manipulating outcome salience, and response mode (choice vs. rating/judgment). Further important characteristics were whether options differ qualitatively or quantitatively in risk, whether there is one or multiple risky events, whether framing is manipulated by gain/loss or by task-responsive wording, whether dependent variables are measured between- or within- subjects, and problem domains. Sample (students vs. target populations) and unit of analysis (individual vs. group) was not influential. It is concluded that framing is a reliable phenomenon, but that outcome salience manipulations, which constitute a considerable amount of work, have to be distinguished from reference point manipulations and that procedural features of experimental settings have a considerable effect on effect sizes in framing experiments. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.     

"Two-stage dynamic signal detection: A theory of choice, decision time, and confidence": Erratum.

Reports an error in "Two-stage dynamic signal detection: A theory of choice, decision time, and confidence" by Timothy J. Pleskac and Jerome R. Busemeyer (Psychological Review, 2010[Jul], Vol 117[3], 864-901). The name of the philosopher Charles Peirce was misspelled throughout as Charles Pierce. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2010-14834-006.) The 3 most often-used performance measures in the cognitive and decision sciences are choice, response or decision time, and confidence. We develop a random walk/diffusion theory—2-stage dynamic signal detection (2DSD) theory—that accounts for all 3 measures using a common underlying process. The model uses a drift diffusion process to account for choice and decision time. To estimate confidence, we assume that evidence continues to accumulate after the choice. Judges then interrupt the process to categorize the accumulated evidence into a confidence rating. The model explains all known interrelationships between the 3 indices of performance. Furthermore, the model also accounts for the distributions of each variable in both a perceptual and general knowledge task. The dynamic nature of the model also reveals the moderating effects of time pressure on the accuracy of choice and confidence. Finally, the model specifies the optimal solution for giving the fastest choice and confidence rating for a given level of choice and confidence accuracy. Judges are found to act in a manner consistent with the optimal solution when making confidence judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of gain and loss decision frames on risky purchase negotiations.

Tversky and Kahneman (1981) and others have proposed that preference for risky alternatives is influenced by positive and negative decision frames. However, such effects have yet to be examined wherein groups negotiate agreements from a continuum of risky alternatives. A total of 26 teams of Master of Business Administration (MBA) students in Experiment 1, and 12 teams of professional buyers in Experiment 2, were assigned to one of two conditions in a bargaining task. Condition 1 teams, presented with payoff tables showing chances of obtaining net profits, were induced to think of potential gains (a positive frame). Condition 2 teams, presented with chances of incurring expenses, were induced to think of potential reduced losses (a negative frame). The potential profit in both conditions was held constant. Bargaining teams thinking "a gain is at stake" were hypothesized to make less risky bargaining agreements than opposing teams thinking "a loss-reduction is at stake." This hypothesis was supported. Results further support and extend findings on the causal relation between positive and negative decision frames and judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Escalation bias in performance appraisals: An unintended consequence of supervisor participation in hiring decisions.

The tendency of supervisors to escalate their commitment of a previously expressed opinion by biasing performance ratings was examined in the context of a "real" organization. The hypotheses of the study were (a) that supervisors who participate in a hiring or promotion decision and agree with the eventual decision would positively bias subsequent performance appraisal ratings for that employee, and (b) that supervisors who participate in the original decision but disagree with the decision would bias subsequent performance appraisal ratings in a negative direction. Cases in which the supervisor had not participated in the hiring or promotion decision were used as a control condition. The study was conducted in a large public-sector organization with a sample of 354 clerical employees. Data provide strong support for both hypotheses, demonstrating both positive and negative escalation biases. The implications of these findings for research on escalation and for organizational policy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging, emotion, and health-related decision strategies: Motivational manipulations can reduce age differences.

According to socioemotional selectivity theory, age-related constraints on time horizons are associated with motivational changes that increasingly favor goals related to emotional well-being. Such changes have implications for emotionally taxing tasks such as making decisions, especially when decisions require consideration of unpleasant information. This study examined age differences in information acquisition and recall in the health care realm. Using computer-based decision scenarios, 60 older and 60 young adults reviewed choice criteria that contained positive, negative, and neutral information about different physicians and health care plans. As predicted, older adults reviewed and recalled a greater proportion of positive than of negative information compared with young adults. Age differences were eliminated when motivational manipulations elicited information-gathering goals or when time perspective was controlled statistically. Implications for improving decision strategies in older adults are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision analysis to optimize the outcomes for Class II Division 1 orthodontic treatment

Selection of the treatment method of choice in orthodontics is usually a question of the clinician's personal preference and is generally based on subjective criteria. Orthodontic treatment of malocclusions is unlike treatment of a disease and hence terms such as success and failure are relative and undefined. Ideally, both patients and providers should be able to arrive at treatment decisions that have the greatest potential for optimum outcomes at minimal cost and risks. This article applies the method of decision analysis to demonstrate how policy choices between "one-stage" or "two-stage" treatment of Class II Division 1 malocclusions for children between 11 and 14 years old can be based on objective criteria. A decision tree was designed to yield the value of payoffs, or outcomes, at each of the possible terminal nodes, and the probability of each payoff. Both positive (ie, improvement in malocclusion) and negative (ie, extraction of teeth and long treatment duration) attributes of outcomes were considered, and numerical values, or "utilities," were assigned to each outcome. For this model, one-stage nonextraction treatment yields the highest probability of maximum benefit. Further applications of decision analysis to resolve clinical uncertainties in orthodontics are discussed.     

Affect regulation and temporal discounting: Interactions between primed, state, and trait affect.

Previous research has largely focused on the influence of experienced affect on decision making; however, other sources of affective information may also shape decisions. In two studies, we examine the interacting influences of affective information, state affect, and personality on temporal discounting rates (i.e., the tendency to choose small rewards today rather than larger rewards in the future). In Study 1, participants were primed with either positive or negative affect adjectives before making reward choices. In Study 2, participants underwent either a positive or negative affect induction before making reward choices. Results in both studies indicate that neuroticism interacts with state unpleasant affect and condition (i.e., positive or negative primes or induction) to predict discounting rates. Moreover, the nature of the interactions depends on the regulatory cues of the affective information available. These results suggest that irrelevant (i.e., primes) and stable (i.e., personality traits) sources of affective information also shape judgments and decision making. Thus, current affect levels are not the only source of affective information that guides individuals when making decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Looking Closer at the Effects of Framing on Risky Choice: An Item Response Theory Analysis

Item response theory (IRT) methodology allowed an in-depth examination of several issues that would be difficult to explore using traditional methodology. IRT models were estimated for 4 risky-choice items, answered by students under either a gain or loss frame. Results supported the typical framing finding of risk-aversion for gains and risk-seeking for losses but also suggested that a latent construct we label preference for risk was influential in predicting risky choice. Also, the Asian Disease item, most often used in framing research, was found to have anomalous statistical properties when compared to other framing items. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.     

The Dynamics of Experimentally Induced Criterion Shifts.

Investigations of decision making have typically assumed stationarity, even though commonly observed "context effects" are dynamic by definition. Mirror effects are an important class of context effects that can be explained by changes in participants' decision criteria. When easy and difficult conditions are blocked alternately and a mirror effect is observed, participants must repeatedly change their decision criteria. The authors investigated the time course of these criterion changes and observed the buildup of mirror effects on a trial-by-trial basis. The data are consistent with slow, systematic changes in decision criteria that lag behind stimulus changes. The length of this lag is considerable: analysis of a simple dynamic signal-detection model suggests participants take an average of around 14 trials to adjust to new decision environments. This trial-level measurement of experimentally induced changes has implications for traditional blockwise analyses of data and for models of decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of negative ions on cognitive performance.

Male and female subjects (undergraduate students) participated in two studies designed to investigate the impact of negative air ions on cognitive performance. In the first experiment, they worked on three different tasks (proofreading, memory span, word finding) in the presence of low, moderate, or high concentrations of such ions. Results indicated that among men, performance on two of these tasks (proofreading and memory span) was enhanced by moderate but not by high concentrations of ions. In the second experiment, undertaken to extend the generality of these initial results, male and female subjects performed two additional tasks (letter copying, decision making) in the presence of low, moderate, or high concentrations of ions. Output on the letter copying task increased significantly as ion level rose among both sexes. With respect to decision making, the tendency of male (but not female) participants to select initially preferred alternatives was significantly enhanced by moderate concentrations of negative ions. Together, the findings of these studies suggest that negative air ions can indeed exert appreciable effects on cognitive performance. However, contrary to claims often associated with advertising for commercially produced ion generators, these effects are neither simple nor uniformly beneficial in nature. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in choice satisfaction: A positivity effect in decision making.

The authors tested the possibility that older adults show a positivity effect in decision making, by giving younger and older adults the opportunity to choose 1 of 4 products and by examining the participants' satisfaction with their choice. The authors considered whether requiring participants to explicitly evaluate the options before making a choice has an effect on age differences in choice satisfaction. Older adults in the evaluation condition listed more positive and fewer negative attributes than did younger adults and were more satisfied with their decisions than were younger adults. There were no age differences among those who did not evaluate options. This evaluation-dependent elevation of satisfaction among older adults was still present when participants were contacted 2 weeks after the experiment. Age did not influence the accuracy with which participants predicted how their satisfaction would change over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reconsidering the Relation between Regret and Responsibility

Recently Connolly, Ordó?ez, and Coughlan challenged the view that regret is partly determined by perceived responsibility for the regretted outcome [Connolly, T. Ordó?ez, L. D., & Coughlan, R. (1997). Regret and responsibility in the evaluation of decision outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 73-85]. In a series of experiments they manipulated whether actors arrived at an outcome through their own decision or through a "computer assignment" over which they had no influence. This decision agency manipulation did not affect their "regret measure." We show in two experiments that this null-effect is due to the fact that regret was measured by means of a general happiness assessment. In the present research we replicated the basic design of their experiments and also found no effects of decision agency on the happiness assessment. However, the results showed the predicted effects of decision agency when regret was directly measured. Moreover, a measure of disappointment seemed to indicate the opposite effect: People are more disappointed when a negative outcome is caused by a computer assignment than when caused by their own choice. The role of regret and disappointment in decision making is discussed. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.     

Decision field theory: A dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment.

Decision field theory provides for a mathematical foundation leading to a dynamic, stochastic theory of decision behavior in an uncertain environment. This theory is used to explain (1) violations of stochastic dominance, (2) violations of strong stochastic transitivity, (3) violations of independence between alternatives, (4) serial position effects on preference, (5) speed–accuracy trade-off effects in decision making, (6) the inverse relation between choice probability and decision time, (7) changes in the direction of preference under time pressure, (8) slower decision times for avoidance as compared with approach conflicts, and (9) preference reversals between choice and selling price measures of preference. The proposed theory is compared with 4 other theories of decision making under uncertainty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hysterectomy: improving the patient's decision-making process

Increasingly, patients are expecting to be more involved than they traditionally have been in medical and surgical decision making. The unilateral process of informed consent is evolving into one of informed collaborative choice. Hysterectomy is a procedure that is frequently performed when reasonable surgical and nonsurgical alternatives remain. When professional consensus as to the clear recommendation for hysterectomy is not present, patient choice is particularly important. Because more than 80% of health-care decisions, including those in which one of the choices is hysterectomy, are elective, gynecologists and other health care providers increasingly will need to develop more efficient and collaborative methods to integrate patient autonomy and choice into the decision-making process. There is mounting evidence that both clinical and nonclinical outcomes (satisfaction and cost) may be improved when properly informed consumers collaborate in making medical and surgical decisions. Legal liability for adverse outcomes may be decreased by increased patient participation in medical and surgical decision making. The era of managed care has created an agency problem stemming from the fact that consumers (patients) are concerned that necessary procedures and other treatments may be withheld because of cost considerations. Health plans and medical groups likely will be required to provide objective information about the options that consumers (patients) have when faced with choices, including decision making and hysterectomy. By incorporating patient expectations and preferences as part of the process of decision making, an ethically acceptable and effective method of "rationing by patient choice" may be feasible. Figure 3 is a graphic depiction of such a process of informed collaborative choice progressing from effective choices through efficient choices and then to the one providing the best value for an individual patient.     

A signal detection analysis of memory for nonoccurrence in pigeons.

In a relatively unexplored memory procedure, pigeons indicated whether or not an event recently occurred. On positive trials, a sample stimulus was presented, followed by a delay, followed by a choice between the yes and no alternatives (with yes being the correct choice). On negative trials, the yes and no choice alternatives were presented without a preceding sample, and on these trials, no was the correct choice. Recent research on this topic seems to suggest that performance on negative trials is governed by a memory-free default response strategy, whereas performance on positive trials is governed by memory for the sample stimulus. However, a signal detection analysis leads to a different conclusion. In both cases, according to this account, performance was determined by the strength of a memory trace in relation to a decision criterion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)