Framing Effects, Risky Choice And Risk

Kahneman’s article is an analysis of intuitive thinking and how it guides our decision-making. Although primarily aimed at the field of psychology, it is an interdisciplinary article with applications in economic theorising. Kahneman attempts to differentiate between two systems of thought, one of intuition (system 1) and one of reasoning (system 2), and argues that many judgements and choices are made intuitively, rather than with reason (a slower and more deliberate process). Intuitive decision making, which encompasses heuristics, although generally more efficient and rapid, makes the agent potentially subject to errors due to framing effects or violations of dominance. The analysis of the studies and theoretical situations also provides criticism of the commonly held model of the rational agent within economics. The article also further conceptualises Kahneman’s theory, the Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), which has descriptive applications of people’s choice in decision-making situations involving risk and known probability of outcomes. These situations are typically unexplained by the more normative rational agent model.

Mass media is an ever-growing field where millions of people are connected at a constant basis. With that being said opinions and viewpoints are established on a daily basis through the media society reads. Many of these news media sources can be persuasive and have an influence on individual’s opinions. This concept is called framing. While it is related to the concept of agenda setting, framing focuses more on the issue at hand rather than on a particular topic. Framing is an important topic because of its major influence over the choices people make and how they process information. “Goffman stated that there are two distinctions within primary frameworks which are natural and social. Both play the role of helping individuals interpret

“Judgment framing” occurs early in the judgment process. The definition of framing follows: Frames are mental structures that we use, usually subconsciously, to simplify, organize, and guide our understanding of a situation. They shape our perspectives and determine the information that we will see as relevant or irrelevant, important or unimportant. Frames are a necessary aspect of judgment, but it is important to realize that our judgment frames provide only one particular perspective.

Throughout past decades, Western societies have witnessed the decline of nonchalant guardianship and the uprise of preventative relationships between parental figures and children starting at a young age. Nonetheless, there are drawbacks to this type of tutelage. While modern parenting idealizes protectiveness, the reality is that growing up overly sheltered can prevent adolescents from developing the skills they need to succeed as an adult as well as cause them to be reluctant to reach for new opportunities. During the interview, “Should parents let their kids take more risks?” Hanna Rosin illustrates the dangers of having apprehension surrounding your child. Coupled with professional hazards later in life, there are also simply moral risks too.

The 2016 presidential election totes probably the most controversial presidential race in the history of the United States. In an attempt to sort through the rhetoric and cover, a citizen may be left perplexed at which candidate to vote for. The claims of both parties show inconsistencies in character and purpose as they make assurances of what the country will be like if they are elected. The strategy they use, called framing, is effective, but not new, in the realm of politics and journalism. Wikipedia defines framing as a social science technique that “comprises a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups, and societies, organize, perceive, and communicate about reality… In the context of politics or mass-media communication, a frame defines the packaging of an element of rhetoric in such a way as to encourage certain interpretations and to discourage others. For political purposes, framing often presents facts in such a way that implicates a problem that is in need of a solution” (Framing (Social Sciences), Wikipedia). The very essence of persuasion hinges on one party convincing another party, through argument, that their way of thinking or solution is better. Thus, framing becomes the tool of persuading the general

The framing effect explains how a problem's phrasing can effect an individual's decision making. When the problem asks if you would be willing to make a gamble where you have a 90% chance to lose 5 dollars and a 10% chance to win 95 dollars, most people say they would not take the gamble (which means they are risk adverse) because the problem states that you have a chance to lose 5 dollars, and this creates a psychological response in the participant because they naturally want to avoid losses.

also vary in terms of their cultural resonance. The more a frame resonates or connects with the culture, the greater its effectiveness or mobilizing potential. The success of framing efforts is also a consequence of its credibility. “The credibility of any framing is a function of three factors: frame consistency, empirical credibility, and the credibility of the frame articulators

When humans make a decision, it often turns out to be “predictably irrational” (Ariely, 2009). They always deviate systematically from expected decision rather show an inclination towards a certain way of thinking. This consistency of behavioral or decision bias can be very helpful to identify consequences or outcomes in a different

Framing is one of the strongest tools in attempting to pull the public one way or the other on numerous issues. According to Entman, government officials have to sell their versions of frames of different policy issues, hoping there pitch is great enough for the citizens to grab hold. The problem in recent years has been the role of the media, they continue to put different spins on topics which sways opinion. This potentially creates a negative effect on the public as they are being fed false or exaggerated information. Entman explains in his book that there are alternative solutions as to how information can be exchanged from government officials to the media and then from the media to the public. Such as the cascade model, in which Entman establishes that the media should provide enough information independent of the executive branch that

Secondly, the framing effect states that presenting the same option but in a different format can change people’s decisions. Plous (1993) states that, “individuals have a tendency to select inconsistent choices, depending on whether the question is framed to concentrate on losses or gains.” A good example of when framing is apparent is when stores advertise sale on their products. For example two stores both sell the same product which is priced at £50

For example, agenda setting is when media coverage of an issue influences the importance of that issue in the public’s mind. Agenda setting may not directly tell the public what is importance but can press for the public to think about certain issues. For example, new sources are constantly reporting stories of violence in local areas which concerns the public. However, crime rates have dropped drastically since the early 1990’s. Violence in the media causes the public to believe crime rate is an issue, despite what the statistics state. This helped push the salience of the issue of crime rates and violence. Framing is when the media provides context for the stories they report. Priming is when the media provides images that influence the criteria by which political leaders or parties are judged. Priming is constantly used in the media during political campaigns. This is used to skew the judgement of political candidates. When consumers are constantly watching the news, crime is more likely a concern since it is always reported on television as well. Crime will be perceived as an important problem since news sources are reporting this to get rating and views. This causes consumers to feel a sense of unease and threat when crime is always appearing especially if it’s in their local area. Framing is filtered and shaped to fit how news sources what to report the story. The details or context of the story leaves the audience to interpret what they see fit. Framing is most obvious when two or multiple new sources are compared and the story description is different. It tends to be more obvious when there is a difference between ethnicities. Majority of the time, minorities are viewed as criminals and are broadcasted more often in violence. The media can influence how the public views certain ethnicities or genders. Several ethnicities are stereotype based off of the

In Chapter Six, the topic of decision making biases and errors was examined. This section examines several bias and errors individuals make when attempting to excuse a decision. In addition to confirmation bias, availability bias was explored in this chapter. According to the text, available bias is defined as an individual’s tendency to make judgement on information that is readily available. To clarify, availability bias is a cognitive bias that make it seems like vivid events are more likely to occur. We can contribute the reason for individuals to overestimate the chances of unlikely events to the media, due to the magifaction of specializing events (memorable and vivid) on a larger societal level.

Prospect theory is an important alternative descriptive theory for decision-making under unreliable situation (Kahneman and Tversky 1979), which includes real life selection and psychological analysis between choices that involve risk. Prospect theory, which efforts to explain individual make decisions between risky replacements based on the value of potential gains and losses (Wakker 2010), advanced from expected utility theory, which explains that investors want to maximize expected utility of wealth when unclearly situations (Blavatskyy 2007). According to Kahneman and Tversky (1992), more recent researches perceived nonlinear preferences in choices that do not involve definite events in prospective theory. The concept of framing effect refers description invariances (Kahneman and Tversky 1992). To be specific, individual always makes the same decision in identical choice conditions. Also, decision makers have tendency to

In our democratic society, mass media is the driving force of public opinion. Media sources such as Internet, newspaper, news-broadcasts, etc, play significant roles in shaping a person’s understanding and perception about the events occurred in our daily lives. As long as the newspapers, internet, network television, etc, continued to be easily accessible to the public, the media will continue to have an influence in shaping its opinions. Factors such as agenda-setting, framing and priming help shape the public opinions. Agenda-setting is when the media focuses their attention on selected issues on which the public will form opinion on, whereas framing allows the media to select certain aspects about the problem and then

The way the media frame issues has a subtle yet significant effect on the general public. Studies have shown that frames can help determine which procedures we find medically necessary (Edwards, Elwyn, Covey, Matthews, & Pill, 2001), can influence our ability to recall critical details of a news story (Valkenburg, 2000), and can even subtly influence elections (Shah, Domke, & Wackman, 1996). Given the impact frames can have on the general public, it is important to have a clear way to conceptualize and measure their effects.