Abstract
Human risk-taking attitudes can be influenced by two logically equivalent but descriptively different frames, termed the framing effect. The classic hypothetical vignette-based task (Asian disease problem) and a recently developed reward-based gambling task have been widely used to assess individual differences in the framing effect. Previous studies treat framing bias as a stable trait that has genetic basis. However, these two paradigms differ in terms of task domain (loss vs. gain) and task context (vignette-based vs. reward-based) and the convergent validity of these measurements remains unknown. Here, we developed a vignette-based task and a gambling task in both gain and loss domains and tested correlations of the framing effect among these tasks in 159 young adults. Our results revealed no significant correlation between the vignette-based task in the loss domain and the gambling task in the gain domain, indicating low convergent validity. The current findings raise the question of how to measure the framing effect precisely, especially in individual difference studies using large samples and expensive neuroscience methods. Our results suggest that the framing effect is influenced by both task domain and task context and future research should be cautious about the operationalization of the framing effect.
Highlights
Human risk-taking attitudes can be influenced by two logically equivalent but descriptively different frames, termed the framing effect
The framing effect is a decision-making bias in which presenting the same option in different ways can reverse people’s risk preference[1,2]
Paired sample t tests showed that the frequency of the gambling option in the negative frame (52.2% ± 2%) was significantly higher than that in the positive frame (39.9% ± 1.9%, t152 = 10.509, p < 0.001, d = 0.855; Fig. 3D) in the loss domain, and the frequency of the gambling option in the negative frame (55.5% ± 2.1%) was significantly higher than that in the positive frame (44.9% ± 2.1%, t152 = 10.611, p < 0.001, d = 0.864; Fig. 3A) in the gain domain, suggesting that framing effect is significant either in the gain domain or in the loss domain
Summary
Human risk-taking attitudes can be influenced by two logically equivalent but descriptively different frames, termed the framing effect. Prospect theory accounts for this as a consequence of participants coding positive outcomes as gains and negative outcomes as losses, inducing risk averse and risk seeking preferences respectively[5,6] In recent years, another novel personal framing decision-making task introduced by De Martino et al.’s7 has been widely used in neuroimaging and genetic studies[7,8,9,10,11,12]. Individuals homozygous for the short (s) allele at the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) are more sensitive to framing compared with the long (la) group using a reward-based gambling task in the gain domain[7,9,11] Another genetic study found that the Met allele of COMT Val158Met polymorphism (rs4680) carriers show a greater framing effect than the Val/Val homozygotes as the former gambled more than the latter in the loss frame. The underlying assumption is that individual susceptibility to framing manipulation is trait based and can be measured using different experimental tasks
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