Cognitive Framing

Last week, in morning meeting, there was a presentation about a study of the framing effect. This effect describes a cognitive bias, where presenting the same options in different formats can alter people's decisions. This effect appears to have a greater effect on people who are inconsistent with their choices and whether the question is framed in loses/gains. This is very prevalent in every day life. Think about being presented with the choice to choose this route or that one, this type of meat or that one, should I try to buy this stock or that one, it goes on and on. It seems as though this effect is one of the best tools in the arsenals of lawyers, advertising companies and politicians. By framing an argument, a brand or a policy in certain ways, perhaps you are able to persuade people to think one way or another.

Here's an example...

A train is driving down a track, at a junction in the track there are two problems. On one track five people are tied down to the track and on the other track there is one person. You are there and next to a lever which you can throw to change or not change the course of the train (originally heading for the five people).

The two propositions are worded in the following ways...
1. You can throw the switch and save five people
2. You can throw the switch and kill one person

Although it is the same in both outcomes, people responded more positively to option 1.

The study that was proposed, would investigate framing in both normal and VMPC lesioned patients. The framing effects were broken into 6 different types of framing effects (e.g. Goal, Moral, Monetary). The researchers hypothesized that the VMPCs would differ from normals in there susceptibility to framing effects. With VMPCs, there is evidence of higher risk taking behavior and dysfunctional decision making behavior. It may be the case that the VMPCs may be more susceptible in certain framing situations and less in others.

They also proposed taking reaction times of the decisions. All though hard to measure, I think that it will be good to take into account both fast and slow reaction times. With fast reaction times, a situation is not being fully considered, while with a slow reaction time, the situation may be being thought out too much.

I can't remember the overall goal of the research, but I know that it is tied to moral reasoning. That's all for now