Education and Decision-Making: An Experimental Study on the Framing Effect in China.

Wen Fan

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00744

Abstract

China’s higher education expansion policy has been in effect for almost two decades. Under this policy, a growing number of youths have gained access to higher education, which aims to train students to be more rational. This study examines human rationality at a Chinese college through an experiment based on the risky-choice framing effect. The basic results show no classical framing effect with regard to individual decisions for the entire sample in a benchmark setting. However, when the participants’ roles were manipulated and subsamples were investigated, a significant framing effect was found that appeared to be role-related and that varied by sex. These results help to elucidate evaluations of the effects of China’s higher education policy and may assist in guiding further policy reforms.

Highlights

People make many decisions and judgments in daily life, the explanations for and predictions of which are often based on the assumption of human rationality
The total number of respondents for each problem is denoted by N, and the percentage of participants who chose each option is indicated in brackets
The results show that there is no framing effect in Q1 (t = −1.63, p > 0.05, d = 0.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [−1.11, 1.68]) and a strong riskseeking unidirectional framing effect in Q2 (t = −2.94, p < 0.05, d = 2.04, 95% CI = [−0.20, 3.77])

Summary

Introduction

People make many decisions and judgments in daily life, the explanations for and predictions of which are often based on the assumption of human rationality. As Tversky and Kahneman (1986) stated, “Alternative descriptions of decision problems often lead to different preferences, contrary to the principle of invariance that underlies the rational theory of choice. Violations of this theory are traced to the rules that govern the framing of decisions and to the psychophysical principles of evaluation embodied in prospect theory” Individuals’ preferences will reverse or shift (bidirectional or unidirectional framing effects, respectively) when the same problem is framed in different ways. Classic bidirectional framing effects frequently lead to irrational reversals in risk preferences under different framing conditions. If the predominant preference is unidirectionally risk-seeking under both framing conditions, it is even more so under a negative frame” (p. 5)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion