“All‐or‐None” Versus “Most‐or‐Some” Options in Risky Choice: Effects of Domain and Handedness

Abstract

Two methodological variants of Kahneman and Tversky's Asian disease scenario were investigated. One variant involved replacing the "all-or-none" outcome scenarios of the risky choice with "most-or-some" scenario outcomes, and the second variant involved replacing the negative domain of lives lost with a positive domain of jobs created. In addition, the effects of strength of handedness, a variable related to individual differences in risk perception, were examined. Results indicated that standard framing effects were obtained across both domains, with a decrease in risky choice under the gain domain. Scenario type also interacted with handedness, such that the all-or-none scenario yielded framing effects for consistent (strong)-handers only, whereas the most-or-some scenario yielded framing effects for inconsistent (mixed)-handers only (consistent-handers are those who use the same hand exclusively for almost all activities). These results demonstrate that framing effects are strongly influenced by the presence versus absence of extreme/absolute outcomes and that individuals (in this case, decision makers with varying degrees of handedness strength) are differentially sensitive to different pieces of information.

Profiling Green Consumers

“…Handedness was significant in the January regression and not significant in the October regression. The handedness variable may have been a proxy for risk preferences because choices involving risk have been linked to handedness (Christman & Jasper, 2014). The positive coefficient on the risk concern measure suggests that those who support green initiatives may also be more sensitive to risk.…”

Differences Between Consistent and Inconsistent Handedness Remain Consistently Interesting: Ten Years of Research on the Consistency of Handedness With the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory

“…In Jasper, Woolf, and Christman (2014), inconsistent handers were more affected by framing manipulations, and they updated their beliefs to new information, while consistent handers showed no sensitivity to the frames. In another study, Christman and Jasper (2014) found that handedness influenced risky decision-making between variants of the Asian disease task, where participants have classically been required to select between an option that might save “all” individuals in a group or “none” of them (for original scenario see Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). Importantly, while consistent handers showed framing effects in standard variants of the task (e.g., when selecting between options that risked saving either “all” or “none”), inconsistent handers showed larger framing effects in scenarios with less extreme outcomes (e.g., deciding between options that saved “most” or “some”).…”