Framing Effects Research Articles

Influences of service, reference groups and framing effects on the intentions of short-term rental users

ABSTRACT This study examines the influences of short-term rental services, reference groups, and information framing effects on consumers’ intentions to rent short-term rental properties. This study used a behavioural economics approach to analyze consumers’ intentions towards renting short-term rental properties. Using the concepts of reference groups and framing effects in addition to the three factors of location, price, and short-term rental services, this study proposes a conceptual framework model. Structural equation modelling was used for the parameter estimation. The study area included Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County. A total of 314 questionnaires were administered, from which 305 valid responses were obtained, indicating an effective response rate of 97.10%. The empirical results reveal that short-term rental services, reference groups, and framing effects had no direct significant influences on rental intentions. However, the three variables had indirect influences on rental intentions through the full mediator variable of attitudes. These findings highlight the importance of rental services, reference groups, and framing effects in analyzing consumers’ intentions towards short-term rental services.

The effects of message framing on US police chiefs' support for interventions for opioid use disorder: a randomized survey experiment.

US chiefs of police hold significant influence over the perceived acceptability and appropriateness of interventions for opioid use disorder (OUD) among the public, elected officials, and subordinate officers. This study assessed whether police chiefs' support for such interventions was sensitive to framing an intervention's benefits in terms that emphasize public health and harm reduction outcomes, versus terms typically indicative of public safety outcomes. A two-armed survey utilizing a randomized, between-subjects design tested framing-based variance in support among US chiefs of police for overdose prevention centers, syringe service programs (SSPs), Good Samaritan laws, police naloxone distribution, trustworthiness of officers in recovery from OUD, and related propositions. Of 1,200 invitations, 276 chiefs participated (23%). The two experimental arms (n = 133, n = 143) were demographically balanced between both each other and non-respondents. Chiefs were more likely to agree that their mission was protecting public safety than protecting public health, even when both were defined using public health outcomes. Chiefs expressed significantly greater support for "overdose prevention sites" than "safe injection sites" (p = .018), low levels of support for SSPs regardless of framing (18% safety; 19% health), and comparably more support for Good Samaritan laws based on framing (62% safety vs. 54% health). Respondents voiced low levels of trust in officers recovering from OUD generally (31%), and significantly lower levels of trust when recovery involved the medication buprenorphine (10%; p < .001). Senior chiefs were significantly more likely to support SSPs (aOR 1.05; CI 1.01, 1.09) and overdose prevention sites (aOR 2.45; CI 1.13, 5.28) than less senior chiefs. In this cross-sectional survey experiment, support for some interventions for OUD was greater among US chiefs of police when framed to emphasize positive public safety outcomes. Research is required to better understand low support for SSPs, mistrust of officers in recovery for OUD, and greater support for OUD interventions among senior chiefs.

Message Framing Effects on Exercise Flow and Interest in Mobile Fitness Apps

Message Framing Effects on Exercise Flow and Interest in Mobile Fitness Apps

Emotional and Cognitive Processes Underlying Persuasion, Moderating Factors, and Physiological Reactions: A Systematic Review.

Persuasion is a type of social influence aiming to produce changes in others' attitudes or behaviors. This study explores the relationship between emotions and persuasion, principal moderating factors, and physiological reactions during persuasive attempts. Following PRISMA guidelines, 28 empirical articles were analyzed, addressing emotions, affective/cognitive orientations, framing effects, and psychophysiological reactions. Mixed findings emerged regarding emotions, with fear appeals being effective in health education, while more recent studies favor the use of positive persuasive messages to increase behavior intention. Principal moderating factors included personal relevance, need for cognition (NFC) and need for affect (NFA), thought confidence, vulnerability, and efficacy beliefs. Psychophysiological studies revealed distinct physiological arousal during persuasion processing compared to a rest state. In addition, a greater misalignment between current behavior and the persuasive attempt led to perceived freedom threat and psychological reactance. These insights enhance persuasive effectiveness and deepen understanding of persuasion processes, guiding future research directions.

Exploring the Persuasiveness of Valenced Fake News: A Construal-Level Theory Perspective

This study explores how fake news messages impact readers’ perceptions of credibility. By combining valenced framing and construal-level theory, the research examines how temporal, spatial, and mental construal dimensions can moderate the relationship between fake news and credibility. A quantitative method was adopted, applying repeated-measures ANOVA analysis. To measure framing effects, 16 negative and 16 positive fake news stories about China were selected from the fact-checking database of Snopes.com. The respondents were chosen from students in the northwestern part of Russia and Hungary, due to the proximity of these countries to China. The results indicate that valenced fake news can be more persuasive when evaluating credibility for proximal events rather than for distant ones. Additionally, negative fake news that contains concrete information is found to be more influential on perceptions of believability. The study suggests that the level of credibility is significantly affected by the interplay between the type of valenced fake news frame and how concrete and abstract information is presented in the message. Furthermore, the implications and future research directions in the field of fake news are discussed.

Climate Change Conversations Amongst Young Adults: On Conversational Safety and the Search for Consensus in Polarizing Interactions

ABSTRACT While much research has focused on the effectiveness of various climate change frames (i.e. cognitive), much less is known about how people co-construct the meaning of climate change in conversations (i.e. interactive). We conducted an interactional framing analysis on focus-group discussions about climate measures to examine how young adults interactively construct the meaning of climate issues, identities and relationships, and the conversational process. Our findings suggest that challenging discussions oftentimes lead to polarizing interactions, yet they also result in attempts to build conversational safety and consensus. These dynamics are defined by (a) the construction of shared truths and experiences; (b) joint fact-finding through constructive contestation; and (c) harmonizing through the active display of positive intent. We conclude that the interplay in the conversations impacts how young adults think about climate change, which provides fertile ground for future research.

Information Framing Effects on Diet Choices Among Chinese Urban Residents

Information Framing Effects on Diet Choices Among Chinese Urban Residents

How should I know? Lack of confidence biases stock market expectations toward zero

Consumers’ expectations of stock market movements are important for understanding individual decisions about consequential financial outcomes and forming economic policy. Across three studies, we posit a new relationship underlying reported stock market expectations: that respondents lack confidence about their ability to forecast stock market movements and this lack of confidence biases reported probabilities toward 0 %. In Study 1, using 10 years of nationally representative survey data, we show that stock market expectations are more pessimistic than warranted when compared to actual stock market movements. In Study 2, we measure stock market expectations in several nationally representative survey experiments over 12 monthly waves (n = 4,613 participants providing 21,670 survey responses) where participants are randomly assigned to report the chances that the stock market will be “lower” or “higher” over the next month and year. Reported probabilities are biased toward 0 % in each question frame, yielding a “framing effect” gap of >10 percentage points each wave. In Study 3, we find that confidence moderates this framing effect: when we manipulate confidence regarding one's ability to forecast the stock market, there is a smaller gap between “lower” and “higher” frames for those participants who have greater confidence. To our knowledge, this is the first research showing that a lack of confidence biases reported stock market probabilities toward 0 %. It also uncovers a framing effect that is counter to psychological theory on “valence framing” and helps explain prior research showing that people are pessimistic about the stock market.

A low illumination target detection method based on a dynamic gradient gain allocation strategy

Current target detection methods perform well under normal lighting conditions; however, they encounter challenges in effectively extracting features, leading to false detections and missed detections in low illumination environments. To address these issues, this study introduces an efficient target detection method for low illumination, named DimNet. This method optimizes the model through enhancements in multi-scale feature fusion, feature extraction, detection head, and loss function. Firstly, efficient multi-scale feature fusion is performed by using a new neck structure in the original model so that it can fully exchange high-level semantic information and low-level spatial information. Secondly, by designing a new feature aggregation module, it can simultaneously fuse channel and spatial information as well as local and global information to improve the representation of the network. Subsequently, to achieve more accurate target recognition, a new detection head is designed by replacing the original convolutional layer and utilizing the reparameterization technique, which enhances recognition performance in complex scenes. Additionally, the size of the improved detection head is reduced by adopting a parameter-sharing approach, thereby balancing detection accuracy with computational efficiency. Finally, to solve the fuzzy boundary problem caused by the target boundary being similar to the surrounding background due to insufficient illumination under low illumination conditions, a new loss function is designed in this paper, which pays more attention to the center of the target and weakly considers the aspect ratio of the target prediction frame, and at the same time, the new loss function employs a dynamic gradient gain assignment strategy to reduce the effect of the low-quality anchor frames and to improve the target localization Accuracy. The experimental results show that DimNet achieves a mAP50 of 75.60% on the ExDark dataset, which is an improvement of 3.77% over the baseline model and 2.25% over the state-of-the-art (SOTA) model. DimNet outperforms the previous and current SOTA methods in terms of detection accuracy and other aspects of performance, which is a clear advantage.

Question framing affects accurate-inaccurate discrimination in responses to sharing questions, but not in responses to accuracy questions

Previous research suggests that even when people are capable of judging to the best of their knowledge whether claims are accurate or inaccurate, they do not sufficiently discriminate between accurate and inaccurate information when asked to consider whether they would share stories on social media. However, question framing (“To the best of your knowledge…”, “Would you consider…?”) differed between the questions about accuracy and the questions about sharing. Here we examine the effects of question framing on responses to accuracy questions and responses to sharing questions. The framing of accuracy questions had no effect on accurate-inaccurate discrimination. In contrast, accurate-inaccurate discrimination in response to sharing questions increased when participants were asked to respond, to the best of their knowledge, whether they would share claims compared to when they were asked whether they would consider sharing stories. At a theoretical level, the findings support the inattention-based account, according to which contextual cues shifting the focus toward accuracy can enhance accurate-inaccurate discrimination in sharing responses. At a methodological level, these findings suggest that researchers should carefully attend to the verbal framing of questions about sharing information on social media, as the framing may significantly influence participants’ focus on accuracy.

When a bleak future comes closer: interaction effects of emotion and temporal distance framing in climate change communication

Given the widespread use of emotional and distance framing in climate change communication, this study investigated how these strategies interact to influence perceptions and behaviors related to climate change. Guided by the Situational Theory of Problem Solving and through an experimental survey, the research revealed that fear-inducing messages led to greater recognition of problems and involvement when combined with short-term temporal frames, compared to hope-inducing messages. These findings suggest that the effects of emotional appeals are conditioned on the temporal distance of the issue highlighted in climate change communication, offering a more nuanced understanding of the differentiated effects of fear and hope appeals and practical insights for crafting persuasive messages.

The Effect of Seeing Paintings or Photojournalistic Images Depicting Refugees on Their Infrahumanisation

Abstract Images are powerful cultural agents that can inform, shape and change the attitudes and behaviours of viewers. The ways in which marginalised groups are depicted in photographs shape people's attitudes towards them. For example, viewing photojournalistic images portraying refugees in large rather than small groups results in the infrahumanisation of refugees. However, the impact of artworks vs photojournalistic images depicting refugees on their infrahumanisation remains a key and unexplored topic. In this pre-registered study, we investigated whether viewing different types of visual images (e.g., paintings vs photographs) of refugees using distinct visual framings (e.g., large or small groups) influences viewers' infrahumanisation of refugees and the intensity and valence of the viewers' felt emotions. Contrary to our predictions, no evidence was found for an effect of visual framing (large vs small groups) and different image types (paintings vs photos) portraying refugees on their infrahumanisation. Moreover, and in line with our predictions, photojournalistic images were evaluated as more emotionally intense than paintings, whereas paintings rather than photojournalistic images engaged more positive emotions, demonstrating that different types of images involve distinct affective responses. Furthermore, exploratory findings revealed that increased positive appraisals of photojournalistic images depicting small groups rather than large groups led to greater humanisation of refugees. This suggests that positive emotions can decrease the infrahumanisation of marginalized groups, particularly when these are evoked by photojournalistic images. Overall, these findings shed new light on the effects of audience exposure to different forms of visual representation and their social and emotional consequences.

Framing of sensitive topics in surveys measuring corruption in healthcare

Corruption is a costly, consequential and complex phenomenon facing healthcare systems globally. Measuring the prevalence of petty corruption, such as bribery and informal payments, is challenging due to the hidden and sensitive nature of these exchanges. This paper explores how question framing influences estimates of informal payment prevalence in doctor-patient relationships in two steps. We analyze the responses from the Eurobarometer survey and then conduct a novel survey experiment in Bulgaria and the UK, comparing the effect of ‘neutral’ (avoiding corruption-related terms) versus ‘loaded’ (using corruption-related terms) question wording on individuals' reports of experiences with informal payments. Data from the Special Eurobarometer 397 survey (N = 16,051) fielded in 2013 reveals a notable framing effect: respondents report higher prevalence of informal payments when questions are neutrally framed, as opposed to using corruption-related language. This result is confirmed by a survey experiment we ran between November 2023 and February 2024 in with participants in Bulgaria (N = 428) and the UK (N = 424). Respondents exposed to neutral framing were significantly more likely to admit making informal payments compared to those in the loaded treatment group. The difference in response rates between countries suggests that cultural and normative specificities play a role in willingness to report healthcare corruption. Our results underscore the trade-off between using culturally contextualized terminology to elicit responses on sensitive topics and adopting a universal approach that facilitates cross-country comparisons. We further discuss the behavioral and normative implications of using neutral versus corruption-related language when investigating informal practices in healthcare settings.

Two paths of news frames affecting support for particulate matter policies in South Korea: The moderating roles of media exposure and psychological distance.

This study examined the paths through which the news frames of particulate matter (PM) influence support for governmental policies aiming to address PM. It also explored the mediating effects of anxiety and risk perception in the relationship between news frames and policy support, as well as the moderating effects of media exposure and psychological distance on the PM news framing effect. Based on an experimental design (N=676), two groups of news frames were prepared for comparison: a narrative frame group and a numerical frame group. The results showed no significant differences in anxiety or risk perception between the two groups. Further, no significant mediating effects of anxiety or risk perception were found in the process through which PM news frames influence support for governmental policies. However, media exposure significantly moderated the effect of the narrative frame: With high (low) media exposure, the narrative frame positively (negatively) influenced policy support through risk perception. Moreover, when the level of psychological distance was low, the narrative frame positively influenced policy support through risk perception. This study contributes to the literature on news framing of PM by integrating cognitive and emotional mechanisms in forming policy attitudes.

Bounded Rationality in Study Time Allocation: Evidence Based on Risky Choice Framing Effects.

When allocating study time for the English sections of the National College Entrance Examination or the Postgraduate Entrance Examination, learners often encounter value-test likelihood trade-offs, where questions of similar difficulty may have different points and different likelihoods of being tested. This research explored how individuals allocated study time and whether this process exhibited bounded rationality by examining the risky choice framing effects in study time allocation. The research set up two types of items: 1-point items with a 90% likelihood and 9-point items with a 10% likelihood. Each type of item had the same test likelihood but was expressed in different framings. For the 90% likelihood items, the test framing emphasized that they had a 90% likelihood of being tested. Meanwhile, the non-test framing emphasized that they had a 10% likelihood of not being tested. A total of 41 college students participated in the study, and they were allowed to self-regulate their study time for each type of item. The results showed that learners' study time allocation differed under the two equivalent framings. This indicates that the process of study time allocation is not completely rational, but is rather boundedly rational, which is inconsistent with the expected utility theory.

Quantitative Measurements of the Effect of Framing and Social Closeness on Decision Making

According to prospect theory of framing, people's decisions are influenced by the potential outcomes themselves and how those outcomes are framed. In our study we investigated if social closeness would influence people in the same way and if it has an increased impact when used in combination with framing. We hypothesized that if the message is in gain-frame, then the potential donors, participants, will be more willing to donate, and if the potential donor and the recipient have a close relationship, then the donor will show higher willingness to donate. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that there will be an interaction effect between message framing and social closeness on willingness to donate. Participants (N = 1539) were randomly assigned to two different types of survey, one in a gain frame and other one in a loss frame. Social closeness was manipulated into two levels, close family member and close friend, and participants were again randomly assigned to two different types, with one asking to give the name of their close friend, and the other one asking to give the name of their close family member. Framing and social closeness both had effects on participants' decision making, however, unlike our hypothesis, did not have a combined effect. Our results imply that individuals may process information about framing and their social relations separately when deciding on donating. The cognitive process involved in this kind of decision making may require two separate processes for evaluating framing and social closeness, respectively.

When Gain/Loss Framing Exerts Its Effects and How: Examining the Roles of Risk Perceptions, Anticipated Regret, and Anxiety

ABSTRACTOver the past 30 years, gain/loss framing has received substantial scholarly attention from advertising researchers. Nevertheless, its effects are not yet fully understood, and further research is required to clarify mixed findings reported in previous studies. In response to this gap in the literature, this study examined the mechanisms through which risk perceptions affect gain/loss framing effects, using two experiments involving different levels of risks. Experiment 1, which involves low risk, showed that gain framing was more effective for consumers with stronger risk perceptions. However, this advantage disappeared when consumers' risk perceptions were weak. In Experiment 2, which involves high risk, loss framing was more effective for consumers with weaker risk perceptions; however, these effects disappeared when consumers' risk perceptions were very strong. The study also revealed that anticipated regret mediates the interaction effects of framing and risk perceptions on attitudes and intentions. The findings of this study suggest that risk perceptions may help explain the inconsistent results reported in previous research.

Study of U.S. Democratic and Republican Senators' Political Framing Strategies on Abortion Rights Based on Social Identity Theory and Framing Effect

Political framing significantly shapes public opinions and legislative outcomes in the United States, making the understanding of Democratic and Republican senators' strategies concerning abortion rights necessary. This study employs Social Identity Theory and Framing Effect to analyze cognitive and affective language patterns, as well as frequent references to specific word count in senators' speeches, using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program. The findings reveal distinct partisan differences: Democrats frequently emphasize women's rights and personal freedoms, while Republicans focus on morality and the sanctity of unborn life. These divergent framing strategies highlight how party affiliation influences the discourse on this contentious issue. The research, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, underscores the complexity of political communication and the need for nuanced studies to explore how language reflects and shapes political identities and ideologies.

Alluring or Alarming? The Polarizing Effect of Forbidden Knowledge in Political Discourse.

"Forbidden knowledge" claims are central to conspiracy theories, yet they have received little systematic study. Forbidden knowledge claims imply that information is censored or suppressed. Theoretically, forbidden knowledge could be alluring or alarming, depending on alignment with recipients' political worldviews. In three studies (N = 2363, two preregistered), we examined censorship claims about (conservative-aligned) controversial COVID-19 topics. In Studies 1a and 2 participants read COVID-19 claims framed as censored or not. Conservatives reported more attraction to and belief in the claims, regardless of censorship condition, while liberals showed decreased interest and belief when information was presented as censored. Study 1b revealed divergent interpretations of suppression motives: liberals assumed censored information was harmful or false, whereas conservatives deemed it valuable and true. In Study 2, conservatives made more critical thinking errors in a vaccine risk reasoning task when information was framed as censored. Findings reveal the polarizing effects of forbidden knowledge frames.

The impact of information intervention on urban residents' willingness to sort domestic waste

Although many studies have assessed the effectiveness of waste sorting policies, few studies have explored residents' waste sorting behavior from the perspective of information intervention as a nudge. This study conducts an online survey to empirically examine the effects of information intervention on residents' willingness to sort domestic waste in urban China. We design and implement three types of randomized information interventions (positive, negative, and neutral) to 720 residents in the city of Beijing. Results from ordered probit models show that, despite the large amount of intervention-related policy context that the sampled subjects already possess before the intervention, information intervention can still effectively improve urban residents' willingness to sort domestic waste, and that the information framing effect exists. Specifically, while neutral information intervention does not affect urban residents' willingness to sort domestic waste, both positive and negative information interventions improve residents' willingness to sort domestic waste, and positive information intervention has a stronger effect. These effects are heterogeneous depending on gender, age, and income of residents, with the effect in male, young-age, and low-income groups stronger than that of female, old-age, and high-income groups respectively.