Decisions based on features and dimensions: How contextual framing changes processing
Final Report Abstract
The project extended the notion of outcome-framing to attribute-framing. We predicted systematic biases for judgment, choice and estimation. The absolute frequency of "present" events should strongly determine decision making when variables are framed in an asymmetric fashion as present or absent, e.g. when a treatment is present versus absent and side effects are present versus absent. Because normative indices require comparisons or normalization including all events, including absent ones, this will often lead to biases. Decision making should more closely follow normative indices when variables are framed in a symmetric fashion with two present levels, e.g. for two treatments and the strong versus mild side effects. Yet, here too biases might emerge. Decision making might follow the alignment of the variables' base-rates, linking frequent levels to other frequent levels. Results of a first series of experiments involving simple paradigms with two or three variables did not reveal systematic framing effects. Instead decision making was sensitive to the statistical contingency between variables. Increasing the complexity of the paradigm, by introducing four variables we did find the predicted framing effects. In further review articles and original research, the implications of these framing effects were explored for consumer decisions and social judgments. In sum, the project provides evidence that supposedly equivalent stimulus framings give rise to different decision making processes. In doing so, it highlights the fact that many seemingly superficial aspects of psychological experiments have not received enough theoretical attention.
Publications
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(2014). Inferring correlations: From exemplars to categories. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(5), 1316-1322
Vogel, T., Kutzner, F., Freytag, P., & Fiedler, K.
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(2014). The presenter's paradox revisited: An evaluation mode account. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(4), 1127-1136
Krüger, T., Mata, A., & Ihmels, M.
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(2015). Information sampling and reasoning biases: Implications for research in judgment and decision making. In G. Keren & G. Wu (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making (pp. 380-403). New York: Wiley
Fiedler, K., & Kutzner, F.
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(2015). No Correlation, No Evidence for Attention Shifts in Category Learning: Different Mechanisms behind Illusory Correlations and the Inverse Base-Rate Effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(1), 58-75
Kutzner, F., & Fielder, K.
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(2017). Smart predictions from wrong data: The case of ecological correlations. In M. Altman (Ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Economics and Smart Decision-Making: Rational Decision-Making Within the Bounds of Reason (pp. 86-100). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
Kutzner, F., & Vogel, T.
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(2017). Stereotypes as pseudocontingencies. European Review of Social Psychology, 28(1), 1-49
Kutzner, F., & Fiedler, K.
