Risky-choice framing and rational decision-making

Abstract

This article surveys the latest research on risky-choice framing effects, focusing on the implications for rational decision-making. An influential program of psychological research suggests that people’s judgements and decisions depend on the way in which information is presented, or ‘framed’. In a central choice paradigm, decision-makers seem to adopt different preferences, and different attitudes to risk, depending on whether the options specify the number of people who will be saved or the corresponding number who will die. It is standardly assumed that such responses violate a foundational tenet of rational decision-making, known as the principle of description invariance. We discuss recent theoretical and empirical research that challenges the dominant ‘irrationalist’ narrative. These approaches typically pay close attention to how decision-makers represent decision problems (including their interpretation of numerical quantifiers or predicate choice) and they highlight the need for a more robust characterization of the description invariance principle. We conclude by indicating avenues for future research that could bring us closer to a complete – and potentially rationalizing – explanation of framing effects.

the influence of rule frames on inferences between disjunctive sentences

“…The effect of rule frame in reasoning is consistent with the framing effect found in decision making research that people's decisions depend on the way in which information is described, or 'framed', violating the principle of description invariance that rational agents' decisions should be unaffected by how choice options are described (Fisher & Mandel, 2021;Mandel, 2014). This suggests that effects of description frames may be general phenomena in thinking and reasoning.…”

Accelerating Psychological Science With Metastudies: A Demonstration Using the Risky-Choice Framing Effect

“…For example, Programs A and C can be interpreted as leading to at least 200 people being saved and at least 400 people dying, respectively. If the outcomes in the two frames are not equivalent, observed framing effects do not represent violations of rationality (for a recent review, see Fisher & Mandel, 2021). We do not address these normative issues in this article.…”

Framing, equivalence, and rational inference

“…In short, Bermúdez's carve-out is unsustained and we are left with a contradiction: Bermúdez accepts the irrationality of framing effects in small-world cases but rejects it in complex-world cases for reasons that often apply equally well to the small world. Meanwhile, the conceptual quagmire sketched earlier (also see Fisher & Mandel, 2021; Mandel, 2021) deserves full attention, but is largely neglected.…”