Lecture 7 - Framing Flashcards
(essential reading):
Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., Chen, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2016). Social Psychology (5th edn). New York: Norton (available in the library as free e-book)
(The 4th and other editions of this textbook also covers relevant material)
Lecture 7: pages 109-113 (4th edition: pages 119-124)
Lecture 8: pages 114-117 (4th edition: pages 124-127)
Lecture 9 : pages 124-135 (4th edition: pages 135-151)
(essential reading):
(lecture):
Order effects are a type of framing.
Define the primacy effect.
Define the recency effect.
Describe a study investigating this.
(lecture):
See slide 6-7
PROEDURE:
- Asch presented different groups of people with a list of words that describes a person.
- He wanted to know whether the order in which he presented those words impacted the first impressions the people had of that person.
1ST GROUP:
- received this list of words:
“Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious”
2ND GROUP:
- received the same words just in the opposite order:
“Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent”
RESULTS:
- The 1st group had a more favourable impression of the person
CONCLUSION:
- This is because the positive attributes in the 1st group were listed at the start of the list and the Pps might pay more attention to them and think positively of the person than by the time they read the end negative words. So once they form a positive impression on someone, they sort of ignore the other attributes, or interpret them more positively.
- Demonstrates the PRIMACY EFFECT.
(lecture):
Define framing effects.
(lecture):
The influence on judgements or evaluations resulting from the way information is presented, such as the order of presentation or how something is worded.
(lecture):
Read slide 8
(lecture):
(lecture):
Define valence framing
What are the processes in valence framing?
(lecture):
- Changing the valence of an event, issue, object, situation…
- Valence – ‘goodness’ (positive valence) or ‘badness’ (negative valence) of something
- Salience and focus of attention
- Increased activation of particular associations with a particular stimulus
BUT - Attitude strength & personal relevance
(lecture):
Describe a few different types of valence framing.
(lecture):
- Attribute framing
- Goal framing
- Risky choice framing
See slide 11
(lecture):
Describe attribute framing.
a type of valence framing
(lecture):
This type of framing manipulation generally presents an attitude object in alternative ways, highlighting different attributes of the object in different presentations, and examines how evaluation of that object changes between presentation modes
E.g.:
- You might resell some beef and you might present it as 75% lean or 25% fat (choose to highlight one over the other even though both are true.)…
- Beef was evaluated more positively when presented as 75% lean rather than 25% fat
HAS A LOT OF APPLICATIONS IN MEDICAL FEILD:
- When a medical treatment is described in terms of survival rates rather than mortality rates, the treatment is more likely to be accepted (see Levin et al., 1998).
(lecture):
Describe goal framing.
a type of valence framing
(lecture):
- Focus of the framing is the goal of an action or behaviour
- Focuses attention on potential to provide benefits (gain/positive frame) or on potential to prevent or avoid negative consequences (loss/negative frame)
- Stressing positive consequences of doing something or negative consequences of NOT doing something
Persuasive communication around behaviour (what is to gain from a certain behaviour vs. what is to lose from NOT engaging in a certain behaviour)
- Which type of frame is the more powerful one? In which version are people more likely to engage in the behaviour?:
(Meyerowitz & Chaiken, 1987) – breast self-examination (BSE)
- Tried to get women to do more breast examinations.
- Type of data could’ve been presented with the types of benefits it could have (what can you GAIN from doing something)
- Or in terms of the risks of not self-examining (what can you LOSE from NOT doing something)
- They presented 2 different groups with 2 different types of statements:
GROUP 1:
“Research shows that women who do BSE have an increased chance of finding a tumor in the early, more treatable stages of the disease”
GROUP 2:
“Research shows that women do not BSE have a decreased chance of findings a tumor in the early, more treatable stages of the disease”
RESULTS:
- Found that GROUP 2 engaged in more self-examining behaviour.
CONCLUSIONS:
- The LOSS frame (highlighting the NEGATIVE consequences of NOT doing) it is more powerful than the gain frame.
- So, people are more motivated to avoid a loss than to obtain a gain (also called ‘loss aversion’)
LOSS AVERSION:
The tendency for a loss of a given magnitude to have more psychological impact than an equivalent gain
(Negativity bias)
- A large amount of framing literature focuses on framing different outcomes in order to influence behavioural choices
- Loss frames tend to be more powerful than gain frames (but not without exception)
(Table 4 in Levin et al reading) - Health related behaviour
- Consumer choice behaviour
- Environmentally-friendly behaviour
(lecture):
Describe risky-choice framing.
a type of valence framing
(lecture):
Loss vs. gain framing in a context where people have to choose between two different options that include different levels of risks…(risky-choice framing)
E.G.:
Tversky & Kahneman (1981) - Asain disease problem.
- They said to people “the country is preparing for an outbreak of disease, it is expected to kill 600 people. There are several programs to combat the disease and you have to choose between programs.” (not exact wording, just what lecturer said)
GROUP 1:
- Given Program A vs. programs B
- Were told “in program A if you do this people will be saved” “ in program B if you do this, there’s 1/3 probability that people will be saved, but there’s also 2/3 probability that no one will be saved”
- Asked which one would you choose?
GROUP 2:
- Asked to choose between Program C and Program D.
- All the information was the same, but rather than taking about how many people would be saved, they talked about how many people would die.
RESULTS:
Group 1:
- 72% of people chose program A over program B.
Group 2:
- 78% of people chose program D over program C.
CONCLUSIONS:
- Potential losses or gains of a particular choice are important, so people are more likely to take risks when the information is framed in terms of losses than gains.
Some decisions can be considered risky, and others can be considered safe.
e.g.
Study done on dental hygiene (Rothman et al. (1999)):
- Wanted to look at whether it was important to stress gains or losses and whether they are dependent on the way the behaviour is described.
PROCEDURE:
- Behaviour they wanted to look at was use of mouth rinse.
- They had a risky and safe option:
RISKY:
- use mouth rinse to detect plaque build-up
(risky because you’re going to have to deal with that problem if you DETECT plaque build up)
SAFE:
- use mouth rinse to prevent plaque build-up
(safe because nothing can happen from this, you are preventing a risk)
THEY HAD 4 GROUPS:
RISKY (detect):
- LOSS - “Failing to use a rinse before brushing diminishes your ability to detect plaque”
- GAIN - “Using a rinse before brushing enhances your ability to detect plaque”
SAFE (prevent):
- LOSS - “People who do not use a rinse daily are failing to take advantage of a safe way to prevent plaque”
- GAIN - “People who use a rinse daily are taking advantage of a safe way to prevent plaque”
(see slide 27, lecture 7 for results)
(lecture):
Read slide 28
(lecture):
(lecture):
Describe temporal framing (different to valence framing)
(lecture):
- Whether something is framed as occurring now, or in the (distant) future
- Psychological distance = now vs. later, here vs. over there, me vs. my grandchildren
- Affects decisions and behaviours
“Will you help me move all my things from my dorm room into my new student house
- …in 30 minutes?”
- …next Friday at 3pm?”
(lecture):
Describe the construal level theory. (related to temporal framing)
(lecture):
A theory which outlines the relationship between psychological distance and how we think about something – e.g. in an abstract or concrete way.
The way we think about (‘construe’) something has effects on how we evaluate it, and what decision we make.
Psychological distant actions and events – abstract thought
Psychological near actions and events – concrete thought
- The temporal perspective form which something is viewed has effects on how something is construed – or thought about.
- Low level of abstraction – concrete details
- High level of abstraction – less detail, general schemas “dining out with a friend” – mostly missing the when, what, where and just thinking about the ‘why’ of an action
- The further in the future something is, the higher the abstraction level.
(lecture):
What are some effects of temporal framing on judgments of health risks?
(lecture):
Effects of temporal framing on judgments of health risks (Chandran & Menon, 2004):
PROCEDURE:
- Wanted to know whether they presented health hazard statistics in different ways that would affect how people believed it to be a risk to themselves.
- They thought they could either present the health hazard (and negative consequences) statistic in a day vs. year frame.
- They thought this would lead to proximal/concrete vs. distant/abstract thinking
- They hypothesised that concrete construal – more threatening?
e. g.
- “Every day/year, a significant number of people fall prey to Mono.”
- “Every day/year, a significant number of these happen to contract the virus by person-to-person contact, via saliva (on hands or toys, or kissing) or by blood transfusion (in very rare cases).”
- Between subjects factor: temporal frame (day vs. year)
- Within subject factor: target person (social distance)
- Dependent variable: risk estimate (0-100 probability scale)
RESULTS:
Main effect of temporal frame:
F(1,44) = 6.36, p<0.05
Main effect of target person:
F(2,88) = 5.99, p<0.01
Interaction:
F(2,88) = 2.96, p<0.05
(see slide 33, lecture 7 for bar graph)
CONCLUSION:
- People tend to have higher risk perceptions when described as being temporally closer to them (daily).
